


The Chameleon Project

by casuallytreebros



Series: Rogue [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Multi, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, look this is a coping mechanism okay, not everybody lives but everybody gets the ending they DESERVED, tony gets more kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casuallytreebros/pseuds/casuallytreebros
Summary: Subject 12 knew almost nothing aside from what HYDRA taught her - how to spy, how to fight, and how to disappear.But once out in the real world with her existence drawing the attention of powerful people, disappearing stops being an option. Either she co-operates and accepts her new life, or she keeps fighting to choose for herself. All she has to do is escape the watchful eyes of Tony Stark and The Vision, and that annoying Spider...Her destiny was never to live as a prisoner or a nameless Subject.Her name is Rogue.





	1. Prologue

** 26th August 2014**

 

The first explosion shook the whole building.

Subject 12 sat bolt upright in her bed, looking up at the concrete ceiling as small cracks appeared, and the harsh strip lights flickered briefly. She had experienced surprise training exercises before, but this felt different. Off.

Something was wrong.

From the sound of it, the blast had come from the North-East sector, and through the haze of her confusion, Subject 12 guessed it was Quadrant F as it was the biggest zone in that direction. Guards ran past the cell door, radios crackling as superiors barked orders to defend the merchandise and other codes that she did not understand. Not that she didn’t understand the words – the guards mostly spoke Russian or English, and the local hires seemed to be Brazilian given their accents.

“Привет? Охранники? What’s going on?” she asked, calling out from behind the metal bars as the distant sound of gunfire echoed through the stone hallways. “Hello?”

The building was, to her knowledge, buried deep in a jungle somewhere remote, so it must have surprised security to have been found – let alone attacked like this.

This was the place she had been kept for the longest, and yet her knowledge was still limited. She knew that she was Subject 12, and was by far the youngest of all the Chameleon Project participants. She knew that her parents had worked for the people here, but had never met them. Dr Felix had made sure of it – he said it could affect the results of his serums. He was the one who had overseen her injections and tests in the last few years, from her fifth birthday to her fourteenth.

Now, as minutes passed and she got no more answers, he had not collected her with the other subjects.

Which meant something was stopping him.

As the fighting seemed to grow louder, the young girl was starting to feel the familiar creeping of fear that she still struggled to suppress. No matter what her instructors or masters taught her or beat out of her, they never could get her to fully control her fear. Subjects did not submit to fear, they were just weapons, chameleons.

Regardless, her mind started to spin, despite how useless it was when she was stuck inside her cell. Who was it? Were they here to hurt people at the facility? To take the Subjects away? There didn’t seem to be any answers, and none of the guards paid her any attention as they hurried towards the ever-growing noise of battle.

That was, until, a familiar face ran past.

“Cassie!” the young girl cried out, recognising the guard who had been kindest to her over the years.

The woman’s blonde hair looked almost painfully taut in its bun under the cap of her uniform, and the blues of her eyes were not cold as they darted towards Subject 12, but soft.

Subject 12 did not know if Cassie was her real name, but it was the one she used. Agent Cassie had been the one who called her ‘kid’, rather than her number. Most of all, she never let any of the other guards push her around or be cruel to her outside of training.

“Cassie please – no one will tell me what’s going on.”

Subject 12 watched as the woman seemed to falter in her steps, her mind spinning with decisions.

After a long pause, she seemed to settle on one. Cassie moved back to the door of her cell, and crouched down as she began to tug at the glove she wore.

“Listen carefully, kid…” she muttered, under her breath despite no one else being around. Even in the nearing chaos, she seemed afraid to be caught breaking protocol. “Bad people have come. We don’t know what they want, but we think it’s something we have safe elsewhere. Either way, if they find you, I don’t know what they will do to you. So, you have to do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

The child nodded, flinching as another explosion went off.

This one was far closer than before, and shouts and cries echoed around them both as Cassie managed to peel off her glove, exposing her skin.

“Good. I know this is going to be hard, but you have to take my appearance. Once I let you out, you have to use my fingerprints to open the door on the South end to escape, so make sure you mimic them the best you can. Once you’re out, you run West to the nearest village. You know how to find West, don’t you?” she asked, and held out her hand for the child to touch.

Subject 12 looked at the hand in pure terror. “But what about you? And Dr Felix, he will-“

“Dr Felix is dead,” Cassie retorted bluntly. “If he isn’t already then he will be soon. And if you don’t leave now, you will be too. You have to get out of here – I will come and find you as soon as I can, but for now, you need to trust me. Take my appearance.”

“But I’ve only done that with one other person before,” she choked out. “I don’t know how long I could hold it-“

“Dammit kid, do it now!” Cassie ordered, and grabbed the girl’s hand before she could protest again.

Subject 12 gasped, not only because of the overwhelming feeling of human contact after living in touch starvation her whole life, but because of the information of DNA flooding her brain. Forcing herself to focus, she felt her eyes rolling back in her head as they shifted from a warm brown to soft blue. Her skin was melting and rebuilding, and her bones stretched as her muscles grew and rippled under her flesh into existence. She barely had time to focus on the fingertips before Cassie pulled away to punch in the code for the door to unlock.

“Go West, I’ll find you – use your training. Now get out of here while I buy you some time!”

Subject 12 could only glance down at herself for a moment. She had grown little over a foot taller, and had muscles far larger than she was used to – muscles that promised energy and speed if she commanded them. She didn’t need to see a mirror to know she was almost identical to Cassie, though her mind screamed something was off, it wasn’t a perfect match. It was the best she could do under this much stress.

“Thank you,” she breathed, stumbling a little as she tried to get used to her new legs.

“Do that later. Go already!” Cassie yelled.

Subject 12 widened her eyes as she saw what looked like a metal man crash into the wall at the end of the hallway. Over the radio she could hear orders becoming more urgent, warning of some kind of Captain taking over the North sector entirely.

Turning her heel, she did what Cassie said, and tried to drown out the sounds of everything around her. Focusing mostly on her hands, she held the woman’s form, sprinting to the South exit like she had been told. Looking back, she wouldn’t remember details aside from the grey stone walls blurring around her as the strength of Cassie’s figure powered her on to the door.

She was terrified it wouldn’t open for her when she placed her hand on the exposed metal panel, but the scanner flashed green and the door opened to a wave of heat and sunlight that momentarily blinded her.

Cassie’s order rang in her ears, even louder than the battle inevitably taking place in the facility. She just prayed the other would catch up soon in the village, because she had no idea what she was supposed to do now. Her whole life had been training and testing and learning as much as she could, but she had rarely even been outside. Even then, she had nearly twenty guards around her at all times, with all their skin covered.

The facility couldn’t risk her taking the form of someone with access codes, but Subject 12 didn’t understand why she would leave. She couldn’t train if she left – she wouldn’t have access to her missions, the ones she’d finally qualified for. 

Yet Cassie had grabbed her hand.

Things must have been bad for that to happen.

The girl did not stop running until she reached the outskirts of a small cluster of huts, and practically collapsed at the base of a wide tree, gasping for breath as the adrenaline died away. She didn’t have enough energy to continue maintaining Cassie’s body so let herself shrink back into her own shape, shaking in what might have been fear or shock.

The sun was sinking rapidly, but she refused to rest. Not until Cassie came to get her like she said she would.

 

It took until sunrise for Subject 12 to realise that Cassie probably wouldn’t be coming.

By sunset, she knew she was alone.

 


	2. An Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Natasha are on a mission, but they aren't alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to set Civil War and Homecoming in 2015 so the timeline would work better, and this way Peter is born in 2000, not 2001. That is all.

** 3rd February 2016**

_Post Civil War and Spiderman: Homecoming_

Natasha cocked her pistol and crept cautiously into the abandoned warehouse.

Well, almost abandoned. The only other life in there aside from Rogers was the reason for the pistol.

Dust practically filled the air, and when mixed with the stench of stale sweat it made her want to gag – yet her composure never broke. Someone had been here, and not long ago. The target had given one hell of a chase, so either was possible.

They had spent hours like this, tearing through the city in pursuit of the elusive man. The warehouse’s roof provided a reprieve from the sun, so the soft lighting made her squint slightly.

She glanced across to Steve, who nodded slowly to her.

“Dr Felix!” he shouted, her voice echoing across the tarp covered boxes and dusty desert air. “We know you’re in here.” There was a long pause, the moment entirely silent, so he continued. “Surrender now so we can keep things civil-”

A single, sudden deafening roar from what sounded like an assault rifle silenced the end of his call.

Natasha immediately dove behind a wooden crate whilst the Captain raised his shield, deflecting the bullets.

“So much for keeping things civil,” he grumbled and shot her a look. Though the sound had startled them, Steve didn’t seem shaken. After all, fighting was like his natural element, and Felix had revealed his location with the gunfire.

As Romanov moved around the right edge of the building, Steve crept towards the area the blast had come from quickly and quietly. Once in a better position, he moved out from behind a pile of crates.

“Step out from behind the box,” he ordered, shield raised ready to protect his chest as he slowly approached the hiding spot.

He was greeted by another round of gunfire, so ducked and rolled off to the side once more, his back to a metal carrier of some kind. Steve would have happily knocked him out, but Nat’s intel said that the doctor had become a wild card ever since their attack on the HYDRA bases a couple of years ago. Whilst the Avengers had been on the hunt for Loki’s scepter, they’d manage to destroy almost every last one of their hiding places. However, Sam's government link said they needed someone to interpret the files that had been uncovered from one of the missions, so needed the doctor alive, unharmed, and willing to co-operate when they dumped him at the doors of a prison.

Natasha was just rounding the corner of the final crate when she heard something. She paused for only a second, listening harder.

Footsteps.

“Steve,” she whispered into her comms. “I think we’ve got another player. You got eyes on them?”

Captain America furrowed his brows for a moment, turning his attention to listen out for other movements. It was definitely present, there was something else here. However, it was so quiet that he wasn’t certain it was human. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to take Felix in just yet if there was someone else here – the doctor was unpredictable and he wasn’t about to risk a civilian life.

“My radar detected some low-level readings of life in the building,” Nat reported in his ear.

“By low level, what are we talking here? Rats?” he asked, poking his head out over the top of the carrier to get a better read of Felix’s position.

“I’m not sure, the interface hasn’t seen this before, it’s not on any of the systems-“

Natasha was cut off by a sudden cry of pain from across the warehouse.

It was coming from Felix.

“Romanov, be gentle with him-“

“That wasn’t me, Steve,” she replied, an edge of concern in her voice.

_‘If it isn’t either of us…’_

Steve didn’t hesitate.

“Get Felix,” he called, and the two charged.

x     x     x

The girl looked down at him – the man she blamed for this.

Now she properly examined the doctor, he was pathetic. His glasses were cracked across the left lens, his grey hair had receded even further into a widow’s peak, and his gaunt face reminded her more of an insect than the untouchable figure he had been in her youth. Undeniably, Dr Felix was a smart man – but as he fell to the floor and crumpled so easily, she could tell that physically he was weak. Feeble. In the facility, he had been surrounded by bodyguards, and it seemed it was because he couldn’t protect himself. Even now as he scrambled to a crouch, waving his gun around as he searched for his attacker, Subject 12 knew she could kill him.

She had never known the extent of his brutality until she found her way into the real world, not when she saw what he had taken from her. Her childhood was torn to shreds, all to be forged into a weapon to be used and manipulated however HYDRA wanted. Injections and lessons and training, forcing her to become more and more convincing as she shapeshifted over and over again. And with all the people out in the world who were oblivious to the chaos being orchestrated, none of them seemed to understand the threat posed because they didn’t even see it was there.

Since her opportune escape from the HYDRA base, she had needed to learn more, to get faster, to become better – this time on her own terms.

She needed to evolve.

“You were so closed-minded, Dr Felix,” she muttered from behind him as he pulled up his gaze, spinning around to try and locate the source of her voice. “When you trained us, you wanted us to only copy and recreate the body of another. Maybe that would have made us good spies for you, fingerprints and retinal scans... We could get into any building, become any person you wanted.”

Felix was becoming frantic as he clutched his gun, because despite looking right at her, he had no idea where she was.

“Who’s there? What are you doing?”

She ignored his question, and instead sent out a sharp hook kick and knocked away his gun, sending it tumbling across the floor and out of the protective cover he’d found behind the crate.

“No, it may have taken the destruction of the facility to free me, but I have gone further than you ever did.”

She had truly become a chameleon.

Currently, the young girl was entirely invisible, tricking his mind into seeing straight through her, her cells reflecting the setting behind her. She could breathe down his neck and he wouldn’t even sense her, just the shift of air flow.

“You know what you did, Dr Felix,” she murmured, watching his eyes widen as beads of sweat formed across his forehead. “You hurt us; you turned children, _infants_ into brainwashed soldiers.”

The girl was aware of the other two agents in the building – she had seen the news, the Incident in New York, the downfall of S.H.I.E.L.D, and more recently their status as war criminals - she recognised their uniforms. Blonde hair and blue eyes, a star-spangled uniform that solely drew the enemy's attention in the field, and the shock of red hair worn by one of the only assassins she could ever pretend to admire. Captain America and the Black Widow.

She didn’t care how strong the two were, they would not take this from her. She had been waiting for too long.

The girl shifted, materialising in front of him not as she was, but the five-year-old he had met almost ten years ago. The transitions no longer hurt so fiercely when her skin reformed and her organs shifted and her bones realigned themselves. It took mere seconds, and it had the precise response she was looking for – a terrified expression on his face.

“Subject 12…” he breathed, so quietly she could have missed it.

She didn’t.

“That is _not_ my name,” she growled, grabbing his throat and shoving him down to the ground, listening to him cry out in pain with what little air hadn’t been forced from his lungs. She groaned softly at her slip, knowing the other two would be here at any moment. Emotions cloud judgement.

Despite this, the touch of his skin allowed her to access his form, and she stored it in her memory for later. It could be useful if she ever ran into HYDRA operatives.

With barely seconds to spare, she shifted once more, this time into the figure of a man she had brushed against in the street two days ago, and raised her hands in surrender.

She watched as calmly as she could whilst Captain America rounded the corner, how he was positioned to pounce until he saw her. Her shapeshifting was perfect, and she knew it. Now, the Captain was faced with a 50-something black male wearing some overalls and a baseball cap, a deeply wrinkled face and a bad back that she already regretted moving into.

“I’m not here to attack you,” she assured him, her voice rasping and deep like she’d smoked cigarettes twice a day her whole life.

Captain Rogers glanced to her feet where Dr Felix was, groaning on the ground and coughing fiercely as he tried to force air back into his body.

“And what about him?” he asked, gesturing to the doctor.

“I will not hurt him any more than he hurt me,” she promised, and slowly lowered her hands to her side. “Why are you taking him?”

“Sir, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. I’m sure we can-“

“You can’t kill him,” she interrupted, not needing some speech or spiel. If Felix was being captured, she had to make sure he would live and suffer rather than be blessed with the mercy of death. “He shouldn’t be allowed to escape, in any way, so if that is what you intend for him then I can’t allow it,” she continued, letting her words out slowly, before shooting a fast and hard kick into Felix’s stomach. If the doctor talked and revealed who she was, she’d have a whole host of trouble after her.

Behind a nearby crate, she could hear the Widow cock her gun, so she slowly backed away from the body.

“No, you aren’t here to kill him,” she reasoned, thinking quickly over the situation. “If you were, you’d have him with a bullet by now…”

“Sir, whatever this man did, he will face justice. But we need you to leave the premises for your own safety.”

“Safety?” she repeated scoffing, a wave of burning anger starting to course through her. “Felix here can tell you all about safety. Parents kept away from their children for their safety. Abduction for safety. Training to murder for safety.”

“Please…” Felix croaked from her feet, and it took all her willpower not to crush his throat.

“Safety is not your concern here, Captain. Ask him what he was doing in Brazil two summers ago. Then talk to me about safety.”

The mention of this mission seemed to ring a bell for the two agents, making the soldier and spy more alert. Though she knew the doctor would never talk, she still crouched to give the man one last look of warning.

“Make sure he never sees the sun again,” she spat, before her skin rippled and shifted into nothingness, and she returned to invisibility.

She moved to behind a nearby box as Steve Rogers looked around wildly, trying to see where she had gone.

“We have an enhanced in the field!” she heard behind her, as she watched Black Widow run to his side.

Looking down at Felix, she saw the terror on the man’s expression. There was no way he would talk about The Chameleon Project, he would sooner die and probably wished he could now. No need to worry over him confessing his crimes to the so-called Avengers.

“I have Felix,” the Widow urged and gestured for Steve to go.

The Captain pressed a finger to his left comm, looking around the building as if it could make her materialise.

“We have a rogue enhanced in the building; he’s not showing up on our trackers anywhere. Wanda, you may need to try some of what we practised sooner than expected. They may not want Felix dead but we still don’t know if they’re friendly to us.”

Meanwhile, the girl slunk away into the shadows, smiling to herself.

‘ _Rogue,_ ’ she thought, as she turned her heel and left the warehouse as quietly as she could. ‘ _I like that._ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this is a rewrite I do have a lot of chapters ready and edited, but because I want to change the plot a load it will be updated less frequently from now on. Plus, I have exams so... Yanno. Pray for me please.
> 
> \- Red x


	3. A Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Annual Stark Industries Gala was going perfectly. Until it wasn't.

** 14th July 2016 **

Tony couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride as he looked around the party, despite the fact that he had only briefly discussed it with Pepper once.

The Annual Stark Industries Gala was always a huge event; though the year had been hard in many ways, he felt a party was just what everyone needed. And by everyone, he did mostly mean himself. But so what? If he needed a distraction from the fact that the Avengers were now just a name with no one to hold the title, and that all of his friends were scattered all over the world, so be it.

Well, not everyone.

He had invited the kid, Peter.

Even after his very mature rejection of being an Avenger, Tony felt it was only fair to give him some training of sorts, and occasionally some _actual_ intern work. It also made his (unusually attractive) Aunt more willing to allow the boy to work with Tony, especially when she saw how happy he was in the lab with him. So, after an admittedly intimidating lecture about keeping her boy safe, she’d given the all clear.

Since he was now technically staff and was off school for the summer, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t let the kid come. The kid was becoming a Junior or something, so there was some cause for celebration, right?

“Mr Parker has arrived, sir,” FRIDAY informed him softly.

“Thank you, FRIDAY,” he acknowledged and adjusted the glasses he wore. Since Bucky’s grand escape from the SHIELD base last year, he didn’t feel comfortable in open spaces without at least a little bit of tech to hand. He usually wore his glasses, and occasionally a watch that could call his suit at a moment’s notice. Paired with a suit that he felt was unnecessarily expensive and therefore absolutely required, he felt the familiar security of bravado, sarcasm, and humour-based defence mechanisms kick in.

‘ _Very dapper_ ,’ he recalled Pepper saying when she saw his outfit. But hey, who said preparation couldn’t be sexy?

Spotting Parker, he wandered over, politely dismissing those who approached him and waving off stray reporters.

“Hey there, kid,” he greeted, slapping the teen’s shoulder and making him flinch slightly.

Peter’s suit was very clearly a hand-me-down from someone larger than him, or maybe a charity shop purchase. His hair was actually styled with some product, and as the teen turned to face him, Tony could just imagine the man he would become – how he would grow.

The kid’s eyes widened for a split second, before he processed and began to ramble at speeds only Peter seemed to understand.

“Mr Stark! Hi, sorry I- I didn’t see you and- Sorry I was distracted by the everything. Uh, I mean, it’s a cool party, Mr Stark-“

Tony raised his hand to pause him briefly, giving him a look. “Whoa, hey, slow down there.”

“Right, sorry. There’s just- I mean, it- It’s a lot…” Peter explained vaguely, looking apologetic as he gestured around the room.

Tony nodded, as he gathered that the kid was trying to express politely about his sensory overload. All the sparkling lights of the ballroom, the music, the chatter, and the colourful dresses worth more than the kid’s apartment seemed to be hitting him hard. From what Tony understood, after the spider incident, his senses went into complete overload when he was nervous or in imminent peril. But it was a party – nerves just wouldn’t do.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, kid. Now look, you need to mingle, maybe have a dance, and you can have a couple drinks, but only if you don’t tell your Aunt. Just talk nice about me and have a good time. Okay?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over the other.

Peter nodded and mumbled something along the lines of “thanks” and “yeah I will”, but Tony didn’t need FRIDAY in his ear to know he was still tense enough to burst something. Frankly, the kid seemed to be vibrating.

“Oh right, I almost forgot.” Digging into his jacket pocket, Tony pulled out another pair of glasses, almost identical to his own, but with what looked like a subtle pink tint to them. “Here,” he offered, gesturing for Peter to put them on. “They should help dial things down for you. Plus, Karen’s in there if you need her.”

Peter looked at him with wide eyes, completely taken aback for a moment. As if trying to remember how to function, he obliged, taking the glasses and putting them on.

In an instant, the kid seemed to settle down.

Tony had tested the glasses himself and knew just how differently things must seem to Parker. The glasses were programmed to make colours seem less bright and dazzling, which he hoped would allow Peter to focus on individual things rather than try to process everything at once.

“Mr Stark- I don’t know what to say, thank you! I- this is amazing. I don’t- when did…” he stuttered, looking up at Tony with the innocent wonder and general gratitude that seemed natural to him.

Instead, Tony just smirks and scoffed.

“Nope, no more questions. This is a party, so go. Have some fun. Scram.”

Tony made some shooing gestures and Peter took the hint, giving him a weird mix of gestures somewhere between a wave and a bow before ducking away into the crowd.

The older man smiled softly to himself.

A gentle hand placed itself on his arm, and he turned to see Pepper all made up and entirely gorgeous in a long black dress that he hoped to see on his floor by morning.

“You give him the glasses?” she asked, nodding in the direction Peter had left in.

“Yup. Seems to be a hit, you were right.”

“You were the one who came up with the idea,” she reminded him, giving him a knowing look that he really didn’t want to appreciate.

“Yeah, well…” he sighed, scratching the back of his neck as he looked out over the crowd, avoiding her gaze. “He’s a good kid. Too much on his shoulders – can’t have him not enjoy this wonderful party you threw. Congrats, Pepper.”

“Okay firstly, it’s a gala. But thank you.”

Tony smiled and looked her over once more. A smug part of his brain let him focus on the sparkling engagement ring she now wore, and how much lovelier she looked wearing it. The one piece of jewellery from him that _he_ had actually purchased for her, all by himself.

“See? Enjoying the moment. You’re getting better at that.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and took his hands in her own. “Come on, you owe me a dance.”

Well… What choice did he have?

As the hours passed, even Tony could notice how the gala was going impressively smoothly. People with ungodly amounts of money were donating to all the various represented charities and were discussing other fundraisers, groups were laughing and dancing and mingling, and the guests continued to arrive all night long.

It was all going perfectly.

Until it wasn’t.

“Sir, I’ve detected an anomaly,” FRIDAY informed him, the AI speaking into his ear softly. Usually, the AI’s presence was a comfort, but these words make his stomach twist with nerves.

Tony excused himself from his conversation to move to a quieter area, plucking a champagne glass off a passing waiter’s tray as he went.

“Is it important?” he asked under his breath.

FRIDAY, in response, pulled up a photo on his lenses of a young redhead who had to be in her late teens. He assumed she was one of his many, many guests. “I have a 98.3% match for Sage Madeline.”

“Okay, and who is she?” he asked, taking a hefty swig from his glass and grabbing a couple of the passing hors d'oeuvres.

“She was a student in a local arts programme, daughter of-“

“No, no, no, Friday, we’ve talked about this,” he interrupted. “Why do I need to know who she is?”

“Because Miss Madeline’s records pronounced her deceased last October.”

Tony paused mid-chew as he processed what the AI was telling him. “Could she have faked it?”

“It is possible, but that led me to find another anomaly. I can’t read any heat signature or vitals from her.”

Tony didn’t hesitate. He started to stride towards the exit, glancing over his shoulder to the party for a moment, before stepping out into the private corridor, the security letting him by wordlessly.

“Scan the whole room. Is anyone else not showing up?”

“No, sir. Only Miss Madeline.”

Tony sighed. He really wanted this to be nothing. Usually, he wouldn’t hope that FRIDAY was just malfunctioning, but then again, if there was some simple explanation that didn’t require him to interrogate a young woman about why she wasn’t dead, it would stop his chest from constricting like this.

“Okay, patch me through to Parker.”

FRIDAY sent the call out, and he pinched the bridge of his nose for a second. He was not about to be Pepper’s favourite person if he disappeared from the crowds and didn’t come back.

Tony heard a distinctive: “Huh?” before FRIDAY explained Mr Stark was contacting him. “Whoa, these can make calls?”

“They can make calls from my end, yes,” he confirmed, before sending an image FRIDAY had of the girl over to the boy’s display. “Sorry kid, I need a favour. Keep an eye on this girl, and don’t let her out of your sight. I need to run some tests but I’ll be back – I’m trusting you here.”

“Wait, what? Why? Mr Stark, is there something wrong?”

“It’s nothing, hopefully. Do I need to ask you to dance with the pretty girl, Peter?” He asked, his tone light but still firm.

“No uh- Sorry, Mr Stark. I’ll uh, I’ll just- You’re not trying to set me… No, I- never mind-“

“Yeah okay, kid. I’ll update you once I’ve worked this out.”

Tony ended the call and tapped his watch to summon the suit.

 

“Please be nothing…” he muttered under his breath, before leaving the party through the back entrance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm literally going to go and watch Endgame for the third time to see if one of my plot ideas would work despite having exams in less than a week. Let me know what you guys think so far!
> 
> \- Red x


	4. A Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue tries to celebrate her birthday, but things don't always go to plan.

** 14th July 2016 **

Rogue rarely chose to appear as attractive as this girl was.

There was a certain power in being _just_ attractive enough, rather than having the beauty of a goddess. People would pay attention to who you were as a personality, a real human being, rather than the skin you came with.

But it was her birthday, and she wanted to dress up and go to a real party.

Admittedly, 'birthday' was a loose term. She wasn’t entirely sure of the exact date she was born, but from what little information she had, she was recorded as a year older between the 10th and 20th of July, so she chose the 14th.

It gave her something real to hold onto.

This form was one of the first few she had taken after her escape, so it was a comfort to her. Long ginger hair fell in soft waves to her waist as wide green eyes surveyed the room, and she knew the smattering of freckles across these high cheekbones were less visible under the warm lighting but were endearing nonetheless. With a body so well-proportioned as this she could turn heads as she walked, wear dresses that would look ridiculous on anyone else, and frankly, sometimes she just liked the feeling of people wanting her attention. Mostly because this drop-dead gorgeous girl could probably walk over someone in stilettos and they would thank her for it.

She’d had a fickle relationship in the past about being seen or noticed, thinking if she shifted, people would know it was an illusion. She was almost never her real self anymore in case HYDRA or someone worse found her. Once she had initially mastered her invisibility, she had spent weeks of her waking hours in full camouflage.

Rogue couldn’t help but feel a small sense of pride over how far she had come. Though it was a rare feeling, as she strode into the party in a flowing scarlet gown she felt like it was okay to be seen this way – like a flame to draw all others into her, giving her all the power in that situation.

She was one of the later ‘guests’ to arrive, after sneaking in as a guard and shifting in some secluded corridor. She even tugged on a pair of long, white lace gloves that covered past her elbows that she’d found in some rich widow’s house a few days ago, saving them for tonight. The only skin she had exposed was across her upper arms, because regardless of how many rich people she could borrow the image of, she didn’t want the distracting rush of information to be all she had tonight.

She wanted to enjoy this – revel in the beauty of everything here. Even if the whole gala was just an illusion the rich could afford to live in, the difference between here and her HYDRA cell was immense. She couldn’t live normally, but maybe she could pretend for tonight.

Hoping she wouldn’t be caught for looking so lost in wonder, she gazed across a room filled with waiters carrying trays of delicious foods and drinks, men in expensive suits and women in dazzling gowns and jewels. Rogue contemplated stealing some of the more expensive looking gems but decided against it. She wasn’t here to work a job, after all – she was here to have a taste of humanity before she became a ghost once more.

Until she worked out how to celebrate her birthday midway between billionaire’s parties and her life on the run, this would have to do.

Ever since she’d seen the news bulletin about the gala, Rogue had almost felt it was destiny to go. Like maybe the universe wanted to make up for all it had put her through, to give her a piece of civilian experience by letting her go dancing on her birthday. It had never been an interest of hers, but then again, HYDRA didn’t nurture any part of her that did things as trivial as socialising for fun – the closest she had was how to gain information from a conversation without being caught in the act.

So now she was in a fancy ballroom, surrounded by people that might be famous.

Despite the lack of interest that she felt for those with fame, the idea that borrowing these faces could get her into many new experiences did make her grin to herself.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Rogue reached for one of the small delicacies a waiter offered her. It was a small pink dumpling, sprinkled with what she could only assume were herbs or some kind of dried pepper. She shot the staff a smile as she took a bite, nodding her thanks as the wonderful, unfamiliar tastes distracted her. She needed to have another of those…

After a split second, she realised someone was moving to stand next to her. Turning politely, she expected to see another waiter or server, only to find herself face to face with a stranger who was anything but.

He looked young, young enough to be her actual age, if not less. His suit was not quite of the quality or fit the other men in the room had, and his wide eyes were framed with light brown curls and a pair of tinted glasses that he couldn’t stop adjusting. He looked out of place here, as if this wasn’t entirely new to him but the expense and beauty weren’t lost on him just yet.

“Hi- I’m, sorry I uh- Are these things any good?”  

Rogue furrowed her brows in confusion, before she realised that he was holding one of the same dumplings as her, looking at it nervously.

“It’s just that I um… Well I had one earlier that looked like a flower, and I didn’t know it was really spicy, so I ate the whole thing at once. It was so hot that I think I burned half the taste buds off my tongue. So, uh-”

“No, it’s fine. It’s some kind of pork centre. _Not_ spicy,” she promised, before finishing hers off in one go.

She watched with mild amusement as he proceeded to cautiously try a small bite of it, and despite scrunching up his nose a little, he didn’t seem to find it too hot.

The boy seemed to want to keep speaking but looked at a loss of what to say. He also seemed very nervous, but Rogue had noted how boys reacted similarly to this body in the past.

“It might be safer to go for the desserts. Less likelihood of tongue burning incidents,” she suggested, taking the pressure off of him as she nodded towards the buffet filled with sweet treats. “What’s your name?”

“Hm?” he asked as if he hadn’t expected the question. “Uh I- I’m Parker. Peter. I mean, I’m- I’m P-Peter Parker.”

She gave him an appraising look, raising an eyebrow at his stumbling. “Are you sure?”

“No, I- Well yes, but I uh- Sorry. I’m not good at parties, or with words usually. They just kinda, well they keep leaving my mouth like I can’t stop them. The words that is, not the parties.”

 _‘No kidding,’_ she thought to herself.

“Then you, Peter, are in the wrong place for someone who doesn’t do well with parties that involve talking.”

He laughed a little at this, and scratched the back of his neck as he shrugged. “I guess so. It’d probably be dangerous to dance with me too.”

“Dance?”

“Oh, I uh, I didn’t mean to assume I just- You don’t have to if you don’t want to, of course, but it… It is a ballroom and a party, and there’s music… I just thought I should offer, you know, in case you wanted to dance with someone under the age of fifty,” he explained, a sheepish grin growing across his features.

It was surprisingly endearing.

“Well, I suppose… It _is_ my birthday.”

Peter’s eyebrows raised in surprise before he practically beamed at her. “It is?”

Rogue nodded, unable to help sending him a small smile back.

“I uh- Well, happy birthday… I uh- I never actually asked what your name was, did I?”

“Eve,” she lied, smoothly. It was second nature given her training, and since she didn’t always know the names of who she appeared as, she didn’t want to risk someone recognising her and asking her questions she couldn’t answer. Evelyn, or Eve, in this case, was the nickname she’d given this body – and it suited her.

“That’s- I mean, wow. It’s a pretty name.”

“Well it’s short for Evelyn, but no one calls me that outside my family. What about you? Peter, Pete, or Parker? You’ve got so many options.”

“Right, yeah… No, uh- Peter’s just fine.”

Rogue nodded, content enough with this. “Well then, Peter, will you dance with me or would that actually be too dangerous?”

Whatever tension that had been building up in his shoulders seemed to lessen slightly at her joke, and she was glad he was relaxing.

“Sure.”

Peter politely offered her his arm which she took with surprising grace, following him down to the dancefloor.

The music was some slow jazz as far as she could tell, and couples around them were swaying arm in arm. From behind her, she could hear someone muttering that it “ _sounds straight out of the 40’s_ ” and “ _you’d think Stark would choose something more modern_.” Rogue didn’t particularly mind – there was so much she hadn’t listened to, hadn’t learned about. New music was never a rare occurrence for her, which she admittedly quite liked.

Turning to face Peter, she tried to mirror the position of some of the other couples on the floor. Loosely wrapping her arms over his shoulders, he lightly placed his hands on her hips. HYDRA had taught her how to dance before – but that had been just a waltz as basic knowledge. This was closer to an intimate sway, where they slowly started to move in time to the music. Usually, such proximity would make her uneasy or anxious, but with her skin so well covered, she knew she had little to fear. In fact, Peter was probably the least threatening person she had ever spoken to; maybe that made the close quarters bearable.

“You know… For someone who’s not good at parties, you’re pretty good at this fake dancing,” she complimented after a little while, shooting him a near-playful smile.

“Thanks, I think?” he replied, chuckling under his breath. “My Aunt May taught me.”

“Well, she’s not half bad as a teacher. Do you see her a lot?”

“I uh, I live with her actually so… Yeah. She’s great.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

The two fell into a comfortable silence as they moved together, and for a moment, Rogue let herself get lost in the moment of dancing with a boy at a party. Maybe the universe _was_ trying to make things up to her after all…

Of course, it was too good to last.

Things were never so easy, not for people- _things_ like her. Letting herself be optimistic for even a moment was a mistake.

The two had danced through about four songs, and so far, neither of them had shown signs of wanting to stop, even when the beat had picked up in the third. The two had playfully swung themselves around the room to Peter’s ridiculous waltz position that had Rogue bursting into laughter and ignoring all the looks they were given by more elderly guests.

Now, the music slowed once more, she returned to resting her arms over his shoulders and smiled at him. She would probably never see him again, but it felt nice to have this as a memory. Some nice thing to think of when it got harder again.

That was until she heard the voice.

It was almost undetectable, but in the lull of the music, Rogue could hear what sounded like a man talking into an earpiece. And it was coming from Peter.

She pretended not to notice, wanting so desperately to be imagining it, but when she focused, she could just about make out the words.

“ _Peter, FRIDAY just scanned the records. Apparently, an anonymous vigilante ran into this same lack of signature a couple of months ago when apprehending an escaped HYDRA operative. She might be enhanced_.”

Rogue could have sworn to anyone then that her blood turned to ice in her veins.

“ _I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep her there, and don’t do anything stupid._ ”

Of course, it was all a lie. It couldn’t have been real, why had she hoped it was? Did she honestly think that the universe would just now start giving a crap about her? And Peter, the perfect honeypot – brown eyes and soft smiles and bumbling so believable that she’d actually been convinced by his act of innocence.

She should have seen it.

Still, despite the hurt she could feel clutching at her chest, she didn’t let her expression falter. HYDRA may have put her through hell, but they had been good to her by training her well. They wanted a spy after all.

Rogue didn’t break as she looked up at him. “Dancing for so long in these shoes was probably a bad idea... I’m going to need a break. Do you think you could grab me a drink?”

She could see the nervousness return to him, flashing behind his eyes for a moment. He might have convinced her with his acting earlier, but he wasn’t any good at concealing his true feelings.

“Sure… You should come with me though – I could introduce you to Mr Stark,” he offered, clearly trying to play this out as smoothly as he could.

Rogue shook her head dismissively at his suggestion, and stepped backwards out of his hold. “Thank you, but I’m sure there are others he needs to talk to first. Maybe at the end of the night?” she suggested, as she fully intended to be long gone by then.

Turning her body away from him to head towards the nearest waiter, she was ready to grab a drink and vanish into the crowd when Peter caught her gloved forearm in his hand.

“Wait.”

Rogue tensed, ready to throw him off her if necessary.

“Can I- I mean, can we keep in contact? I could give you my phone number-“

“I don’t own a phone,” she told him, her voice now firmer and colder than before. “Can you let go of me now, please?”

The tension in the air was suddenly so thick that she thought if time paused right then, she could reach out and slice it with a blade.

Just as she was about to forcibly pull away and vanish, a voice chimed in from behind them.

“Kid, if a lady wants a drink it doesn’t mean she’s going to run out on you.”

Rogue felt Peter’s grip leave her, and she turned to find Tony Stark himself wandering over.

“I couldn’t help but overhear you two. I’m sorry about him, he’s no good with parties.”

“Yes, he mentioned that,” she muttered, glancing back and forth between the two men.

Stark made no further comment, instead, he pulled his hand from behind his back, and she wondered for a split second if he would pull a gun out in the middle of his own party.

Only on her birthday would she have to disappear to escape a potential fight with Iron Man…

But it wasn’t a gun.

Rogue stared confused as the billionaire world-saving Avenger who could most likely take her down in seconds, handed her what looked like a glass of water.

Not that she would trust it for one second – Rogue had heard the voice in Peter’s ear and it matched Stark’s. Both males knew who, or at least vaguely _what_ she was. Nonetheless, she took the glass politely, trying not to overtly examine it too closely. It could be drugged with any clear concoction, and with the fortune he had, he could afford to purchase just about all of them.

However, it seemed that neither Peter nor Tony wanted to start a fight, so she figured the best way out was to play along. Raising the glass to her lips, she pretended to take a sip, not letting a single drop into her mouth.

When finished with the mime, she shot Tony a smile and a soft: “Thank you.”

She looked across the ballroom to the large ornate clock hanging over them all, and let her eyes widen in feigned shock at the sight of the time.

“Oh god, I was meant to be back at home five minutes ago… My mum will kill me if she can’t get another video of me blowing out my candles,” she lied, turning to Peter and Stark apologetically.

“Thank you so much for keeping me company, Peter, and it’s a real honour to meet you, Mr Stark,” she promised, before putting her glass on a passing waiter’s tray.

“Eve, wait, you really don’t have to-” Peter started, but she didn’t hear the rest.

Instead, she waved them both goodbye and rushed towards the door before either could follow her.

Then she let the beautiful body around her disappear into nothingness and refused to become visible even when she found shelter for the night.

x     x     x

Tony watched as she left, and couldn’t help but smile to himself. He’d made it back to the party in time, Pepper wasn’t too pissed with him, and he was finally getting to test MINNIE out…

He was only drawn out of his thoughts by the confused, speechless expression Peter was giving him.

“What?” He asked, confused.

“You just let her go?” the kid spluttered, gesturing after her. “I thought we had to keep her here, I thought you said she was an enhanced-“

“Shh!” Tony scolded and tugged Peter away to the side of the room.

When they got to the wall, the younger male looked up at him, a mix of emotions crossing his face.

“Who _was_ she?” Peter asked, voice hushed as he glanced around the room.

“I don’t know,” Tony answered honestly.

“You don’t _know_?”

“No, I don’t. And she might not even be a she – last time those kinds of readings were found, there was a 50-year-old man involved. That person, whoever they were, was almost an identical match to a girl who is most definitely not alive right now.”

“So, she had a twin?”

“No. She definitely didn’t fake her death, either. The readings FRIDAY was getting were completely off.”

“So why did you let her go?” Peter asked again, entirely at a loss here.

“Because when she left, I’d already got a tracker on her,” he explained and smirked at Peter. “I got MINNIE working a couple of nights ago. I couldn’t test that kind of nanotech on just anyone, but the trackers are in her system. There’s some interference, but we can get a location. It’s working.”

Peter stared at him, silently for a long while.

“Wait… When did you even…?”

“Her glass, Pete. I coated it in the lab when-” Tony sighed, a little exasperated. “Look, it doesn’t matter right now. We’ve got it handled, that’s what matters.”

Peter nodded slowly, crossing his arms in the silence as he processed what Mr Stark had told him. After another pause, he looked up at Tony, adjusting his glasses. “Okay. So, what do we do now?”

Tony smiled at him and clapped a hand on the kid’s shoulder.

 

“Depends on if your Aunt will let me borrow you for a while, and I need to call in a friend…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really hoping I'm accurately portraying Peter - he's just so brilliant in the MCU and I want Tom's version of him to really come through here. Also, I messed up my exam timetable so now I have only a week to revise a whole module. Yikes.
> 
> Thank you for the kudos, is anyone brave enough to leave a comment? They make me so happy!
> 
> \- Red x


	5. A Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue tries to shake the feeling that her escape was too easy. Natasha repays an old favour.

** 15th July 2016 **

Rogue had always liked New York.

Regardless of the time of year, or even the time of day, the place was guaranteed to be busy. There was something comforting about never being alone – it truly was a city that never slept. She could change in the middle of the street and no one would see, despite there being thousands of eyes. It gave her a sense of peace, to know she could be invisible without using the full extent of her powers.

The traffic, sounds of chatter and music around her were helping to drown out the nervous thumping in her chest. Stark letting her leave the party like that… She had been certain it was him talking to Peter, that they were onto her.

_‘So why did he let me go so easily?’_

She had been on edge ever since, her usual four hours of sleep shortening to about two last night, and her body felt different for it. Off. Like her very cells were trying to tell her something was wrong. But last night she had been upstate in a party with maybe five hundred people, and now she was in the open in amongst thousands of different faces. There was nothing to suggest she was being followed, and it would be almost impossible to do so.

She should feel safe.

She did, too, for a little while.

Upon leaving the doorstep she’d fallen asleep on, Rogue had used the appearance of a tall, blonde male dressed in a nice jacket, a pair of black, wide frame glasses, and a green scarf that felt stupidly soft. She stuck with his appearance for the familiarity and general comfort of those clothes as she followed the current of people.

Maybe if she wasn’t so paranoid about being found, being experimented on again, she would attempt to have a normal life. Get a job, rent an apartment, try to do something meaningful. Instead of wandering the streets with no destination in mind, she would be like those around her – those who had a purpose and a drive and a meaning that got them out of bed and made them walk up this path.

But it wasn’t safe for her, Dr Felix had been incarcerated, and General Volkov would remain out of her reach until she was much stronger.

So, she just kept walking.

Brushing against strangers was a form of work, she supposed – getting new forms from wherever she could. So far, Rogue hadn’t found a limit for the different appearances she could take, but some were vaguer than others. Her fingers wouldn’t have prints, or she’d lack a belly button or some other small, less significant aspect of the body. Nonetheless, it soothed her to know she could continuously change if she wanted to, without having to reuse old faces too often.

There wasn’t a specific moment when she noticed, it was more of a creeping realisation that sent her mind into a spiral and swiftly into overdrive. Adjusting her scarf once more, Rogue couldn’t help but shoot a glance behind her.

She could feel it – the gaze of another person.

Not that she could be sure who it was in the sea of strangers, but nonetheless, the girl was certain someone was watching. Maybe following.

Or maybe she was just being paranoid.

For the sake of caution, Rogue pulled off her walk to one side of the street, pretending to duck down and tie her shoelace, before shifting swiftly into a short Chinese woman. She made sure to adjust her outfit too, before re-joining the flow of people and keeping her head firmly down.

 

x     x     x

 

Peter crouched down on the rooftop, watching the scene of the street below carefully. Karen had adjusted the display on his suit for this mission, highlighting the nanotech trackers that Eve, or whoever she was, had unknowingly absorbed into her skin last night.

Tony had called him in this morning and told him to bring the suit along. Happy had arrived 30 minutes later exactly, and he’d arrived at the upstate complex before ten. By the looks of it, Mr Stark hadn’t slept last night, but Peter didn’t feel like it was his place to comment on that. He was just surprised that Mr Stark wanted back up, so whatever this person was, it must have been important.

After what happened with the Vulture at the beginning of the year, Peter had been trying to take things easy.  He wasn’t so desperate to start fights with big bad guys like the Vulture or the Shocker or anyone like him, but that didn’t mean he was about to say no a mission if _Tony Stark himself_ had asked him.

Without the need to constantly prove he was strong enough to be an Avenger, he had been able to take a step back. That being said, he lived in Queens, New York.  It wasn’t like crime was never committed in Queens, and there had to be someone there to help the little guy when no one else was looking out for them.

That was what Spider-Man was for – taking care of everyone else.  Peter liked to think that being Spider-Man was his part in doing something for the greater good; it was his own little way to give back to the community. Another part of him, the one that was more realistic and honest, knew that he really liked how he felt about himself when he put the suit on. Spider-Man was the better version of Peter Parker. Spider-Man was the guy who fought with Iron Man last year when Captain America was outside the law. Spider-Man was the guy who fought off an illegal weapon’s dealer and stopped him from robbing the Avengers themselves.

At least he could enjoy being Spider-Man. Now that there was no school, he could enjoy that a little more often too.

Despite having been to the complex before, Peter was still in awe at how insane the place was. He’d only really been able to drag his eyes away from the tech when he sensed they were no longer alone.

Turning to the doorway, Peter’s jaw dropped at the sight of Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow.

“This had better be good, Tony,” she warned, before casting Peter (who was trying to remember how to speak) a glance of curiosity.

“Good to see you too, Nat. How’s being a fugitive?”

“Keeps you alert. And makes you suspicious when old friends call in big favours.”

“You know what you owe me. Ross won’t get a word of this,” Stark retorted, before bringing up a file dated early February. “I need some information on this – I’m guessing it was you given the files left were recorded on Stark tech. The readings your scanners had on this mission match a potential enhanced who decided to come say hi last night – anything you can tell me?”

Natasha seemed cautious, and Peter wasn’t exactly surprised. The last time he’d seen her was when she had helped Captain America escape, even though she had been helping Mr Stark. And yet Tony had called her here? She was hiding from the government, and yet she still came. His head was spinning as he tried to work out if the Widow was either a triple crosser or a conflicted friend.

Mr Stark had only told Peter a little bit about the Sokovia Accords last year: that it was a United Nations approved document, that the purpose of the document wasn’t to limit the Avengers or to politicize what they’re doing – it was to make sure that the Avengers got back into the good graces of the people. That the Avengers didn’t become weapons with immeasurable amounts of firepower and nothing to keep them in check, or with no one to take care of evacuation when the Avengers need to focus on getting the bad guys at hand.

What Tony didn’t mention was the Raft prison, not that Peter knew a lot about that — or was supposed to know a lot about that. It was a surprise when he stood on the side as Everett Ross’s men went after Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, Sam Wilson and… Scott something. The guy who had got really, really big in their fight.

“ _What’s going to happen to them_?” Peter remembered asking.

The four remainders of Team Cap were being chained together and shoved into a helicopter violently at the time.

“ _They’re out of our hands_ ,” Tony had told him. “ _It’s best if you don’t worry about them_.”

Of course, it was impossible not to think about what was happening to them. Peter wasn’t stupid, nor was he bad at hacking into things when he had access to Stark-level tech. Learning about the Raft Prison had left him seriously shaken…

Briefly, he even wondered if _he_ was going to do something bad and end up in there.

All criminals apprehended under the Sokovia Accords would end up contained in a floating prison, including former Avengers. Team Cap, now at large after Captain America broke them out, still has their own cells waiting for them.

After what happened at Coney Island, it was a real shock to Everett Ross to find out that Spider-Man happened to know Iron Man. Just like the Raft, Tony didn’t mention what would happen if the government found out about Spider-Man. Peter remembered being pulled out of school by May, and they spent the entire day at the new Avengers Compound sitting in Tony’s office as he went back and forth with Ross.

There was a lot of yelling.

A lot of threatening.

A lot of May pacing back and forth as she tried to figure out what she’s going to say to Tony once he got off the phone.

Peter did have to sign the Accords in the end, but not the same way that Tony, Vision or the other team Iron Man members did. He wasn’t an official Avenger, so he didn’t have to operate on the same rules as the Accords. There were technicalities, though. If Spider-Man ever paired up with someone operating under the Accords, Spider-Man would have to follow the same rules. There were jurisdiction issues, as well. Spider-Man could operate legally in the United States, but anything international that could turn into a serious political mess meant that Spider-Man was under Accord rules.

Peter could live with this for now, but the back of his mind was still haunted by the idea of a cell in the middle of an ocean, miles away from Aunt May and his friends.

He was sixteen and was making sure he didn’t cause international incidents. It was more than a little messed up.

Nonetheless, he was focused as he scanned the surging crowd below, following the signature but unable to see the redheaded girl from the gala last night. From what Natasha had been able to tell them, she’d seen a grown man disappear before her own eyes. Tony had briefly wondered if that meant he had disintegrated somehow, but Natasha described it as closer to shimmering, almost melting out of existence. And besides, the files showed that the signature had disappeared a few minutes after the man had.

This meant that they were either hunting a hologram or a group of invisible people.

No matter how much Peter enjoyed being a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, that sentence was pretty cool. A small part of him was excited to tell Ned about this, but he pushed that to the back of his mind.

The signature was getting further away again, so he leapt across to the next rooftop. “The signature’s still headed South,” he murmured into his comm.

“I’m 15 behind it,” Natasha responded, and he could see she was right on the tail of the bots. Wherever they were.

Peter still felt something was off. There was some tall guy with a green scarf standing right behind the signature, and no matter how he positioned himself, he couldn’t see around him without making himself obvious on the roof.

“Alright. Remember kid, keep your distance and web them up once we have them on their own. No playing hero or getting hurt, I’ve not had enough coffee today to be lectured by May,” Tony warned in his ear. Mr Stark was somewhere nearby, some hotel he’d booked the top floor of and decked out in a load of computers whilst he tried to work out why the nanotech signal kept getting interrupted.

And why there were no vitals.

And what the hell this girl was.

It made Peter feel a little more encouraged to know he had two experienced Avengers around – the more people to back him up the better.

“Sure thing, Mr Stark,” he promised. He was about to move to the next rooftop when he noticed the scarf guy had moved to the side of the street. “Karen, can you get closer to the man at the edge?”

“Of course, Peter,” the AI replied, and true to her word, zoomed in closer on the male. The display showed the tech had stopped moving too, which confused him further. “Wait a second…”

Before he could even fully form the words or the idea in his head, the male on his display transformed. There was no other way to describe it, but a ripple that seemed to start in the man’s centre shimmered across his whole body. It was so fast he wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but in the place of the man he’d been watching was now a middle-aged Chinese woman.

“Whoa! Mr Stark, are you seeing this?” Peter exclaimed, before jumping across to the next building, eyes firmly trained on the woman.

“I’ve lost eyes,” Natasha warned, but Tony interrupted.

“They don’t become invisible; they’re some kind of shapeshifter, Nat.”

“Yeah, she’s- he’s- whoever- brown coat, Chinese, middle-aged,” Peter relayed to her quickly, seeing she was falling behind.

“Got them.”

As if the shifter could hear them, Peter watched in amazement as they disappeared entirely.

“The readings don’t make any sense, it’s like even their atoms are rearranging…” Tony muttered.

“Tony, your scanners are glitching. Can you fix them from there?” Natasha asked, and Peter realised she was right. His display kept displacing where the tech was.

“It’s them, whatever they’re doing to shapeshift is damaging the tech. We can’t lose them - if the bots break then we have no way to track them.”

“I can eyeball it for now?” Peter offered, noticing as a young boy in a blue hoodie appeared from seemingly nowhere.

“Parker, can you try to corner them? Get them away from the civilians but stay back. Nat, try to get close where the kid can’t. I’m on my way,” Mr Stark ordered, and Peter knew Iron Man was about to make an unexpected appearance. It wouldn’t be a big enough deal for the Accords to be in play, he assumed…

The enhanced stranger seemed to be speeding up which dragged him from his thoughts, and Peter figured they must know they were being tracked now. This gave him a little more freedom, and he stopped crouching so low to run to the next rooftop.

“Karen, try to track the people down there. If any disappear, change, or don’t show vitals let me know.”

“Of course, Peter. But I can’t measure vitals from this distance.”

“Then focus on the changing and disappearing.”

With that, he lifted his arm and fired a web at a building across the street. Tensing his muscles, he leapt into the air and swung across towards the target.

“I’ve located an anomaly,” Karen informed him, and the face of a younger man with dark skin and cropped curly hair flashed up on his display.

Peter crawled up onto the roof, barely paying attention to some members of the public who had started noticing him, pointing him out and grabbing cameras. He was too focused on the man who had started to run.

Natasha seemed to decide to follow Peter since she couldn’t keep track of whoever they kept becoming; for example, they’d now shifted into a person so skinny that Peter could see their collarbones from the rooftop.

“Hey uh, Miss Romanov? Can you try to herd them into the alleyway coming up?” he asked politely, as he saw Black Widow pushing through the crowd after the runner.

“Stark, you’d better be close,” she growled into her comm, and Peter felt a dash of concern for Mr Stark. An elite assassin was not the type of person he would want to make irate.

True to her word, Natasha moved out to the left, close to the oncoming traffic and giving her more freedom to move around the crowd. She was simultaneously making them veer right, and closer to the alleyway entrance.

Peter shot another line of web out, before swiftly abseiling down the wall that led into the gap between buildings. Running forward, he looked out to see if he could spot the mystery person…

There.

He shot a web from his wrist that stuck to their lower back, before catching the end of it and yanking on it hard. They tumbled backwards, falling into the alley.

Natasha arrived seconds later, and Peter stared at the stranger in front of him with awe.

Their pale green eyes were wide, skin pale and their frame was so slim he was scared for a moment that he might have seriously hurt them by tugging them so hard.

He was about to speak, tell them that Mr Stark just needed to ask some questions, when they shifted again.

He’d seen it only from a distance so far, but this was entirely different. Peter watched in awe as a ripple passed through their whole body. It was like something from a movie – their skin seemed to melt and balloon out as it changed shade. Bones grew and hair shortened, and the body just grew and grew, until he and Black Widow were faced with what looked like a hulking six-foot-five bodybuilder. The new form stood in what looked like a shallow crater that Peter was sure hadn’t been there before, but looking more at the man, person- _thing_ , he found himself wishing for Mr Stark’s arrival to happen a little faster.

Seriously – it was like his muscles had muscles.

He was drawn out of his stare when he realised Natasha was stepping in front of him protectively. “Keep your distance,” she reminded him, taking a defensive position.

“Why are you following me?” the man, or _they_ asked, voice so low that Peter could almost feel it in his chest.

“Because we need you to answer some questions,” Natasha replied smoothly.

“How did you find me?”

Romanov glanced back towards Peter and nodded in the direction of the enhanced. “We have some friends. They have some very useful resources. We aren’t here to fight, so you don’t need to… Look like this,” she finished, gesturing to the bulk of their figure.

“I’ve met you before… You took Doctor Felix away,” they murmured.

They spoke so softly Peter that almost missed it; he raised his eyebrow in confusion but positioned himself ready to start firing webs if necessary.

“So, it is you… From the warehouse. You never gave us your name,” Natasha pointed out.

The enhanced went to speak but stopped as a look of realisation flickered in their eyes.

“You’re stalling.”

With a sigh, the stranger stepped towards Natasha, or maybe the exit, but Peter reacted immediately.

“Taser web,” he muttered, and the hit went straight to their chest. He watched as they shook as electricity surged through them.

The enhanced let out a strangled yell before ripping the web away. They recovered quickly and went to charge at Peter but Natasha dove in, lifting her leg to deliver a roundhouse kick. They ducked quickly out of the way, and in retaliation, they delivered a quick punch to her face. Natasha was an experienced fighter, and even if Peter hadn’t known this, he could have gathered it from the way the other’s blows were easily blocked until they kicked her in the abdomen.

Romanov recovered from the hit by stumbling back somewhat gracefully, and in retribution delivered a punch to their side, causing them to wince in pain, which allowed her to follow with another kick to their side. The enhanced grabbed her leg as she was about to strike again, and flipped her onto the floor.

Peter moved, starting to shoot webs rapidly at them, but before he could land a hit – they vanished into thin air. Karen was searching the visuals but Peter was too busy trying to formulate a response to how _cool_ this was – he was fighting an invisible shapeshifter!

Natasha groaned, getting to her feet with a sharp push off the ground, looking around for where they’d vanished to. The enhanced suddenly reappeared behind her, and before Peter could warn her, she spun rapidly to face them. She dove at their chest, hooking her legs around them before forcing herself up onto their giant shoulders and started to bring her elbows down at the man’s head. Unable to throw her off, they disappeared again but this time from underneath her, and she tumbled to the ground.

Peter recovered from enough of his shock to move towards the exit of the alley – he couldn’t let them get away.

He swiftly webbed a net across the exit, back and forth until there was no way they could come back out again without going through it. He looked back to Natasha when suddenly the enhanced re-apparated in front of him. He ducked as they swung a fist at him, and rolled to the side, climbing back up the wall to get out of the way.

The enhanced watched him as he climbed the wall a full flight up, and they seemed to want to swipe him down as they looked over the web wall he’d created.

“Let me leave!” they yelled up to him, and the authority or command in their voice made Peter pause for a moment.

Black Widow was just getting up off the ground, a trickle of blood evident on her forehead.

There was nowhere for the enhanced to go – the alley’s entrance was blocked by the webs and it was a dead end the other way. Peter watched as the muscular man’s breathing continued to speed up despite the lack of combat at that moment.

‘ _They’re afraid._ ’

Before Peter could say anything, there was a quiet ‘ _zzzpt_ ’ sound from above, and suddenly the enhanced toppled to the floor. Peter looked up to see an Iron Man suit descending from above.

“Took your time, Tony,” Romanov grumbled bitterly.

“Easy tiger,” Mr Stark replied, landing with a distinctly metallic thud next to him.

Peter turned to see the enhanced laying on the ground, their body shrinking down in size, smaller and smaller.

“Mr Stark, what did you do?” he asked concerned, noticing a small needle-like dart on the side of their neck.

“It’s a tranquillizer – nothing too heavy, kid, don’t worry. I wasn’t sure what would work, so I have a couple of stronger doses onboard in case.”

The three approached the collapsed body, and all three were surprised by what they saw.

“She’s just a kid,” Natasha breathed, and she was right.

The girl slumped on the ground was pale, either from the dart or the fight Peter imagined, and had messy, mousy brown hair that came down to the middle of her back like it hadn’t been cut in years. He couldn’t tell much more with her eyes closed, body encased with the clothes the large man had been wearing mere moments ago, but Peter couldn’t help but wonder if that’s how the other Avengers had seen him.

A fragile child.

Tony turned to Peter, helmet opening so he could see his face. “Thanks for your help kid, but uh… We’re gonna take this from here,” he murmured, tone more solemn than Peter was ever sure he’d heard it. Stark then turned to the wall of webbing, and a thin laser from his palm sliced neatly through the mesh, reopening the alley.

“Will she be okay?” Peter asked, unable to help himself from imagining this girl on her own Raft prison somewhere.

“Yeah, kid. She’s gonna be fine,” Tony promised, before closing his helmet and scooping her unconscious body up in his arms. “Now go home, say hi to your Aunt for me.”

 

Peter had a million more questions, but all he was left with was the suit jetting off into the sky.

“Good to see you again, Spider-Man,” Natasha said with a gentle smile, before heading towards the mouth of the alley and disappearing off into the street on the other side, leaving Peter alone with his thoughts.

His many, many thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now it all really begins!
> 
> I keep telling myself these exams are pass/fail but the stress keeps building, you know? Only 2 exams left and then I'll be all yours to write for the summer aside from my job and holiday. Who's excited?
> 
> Thank you all for the kudos and comments! They really motivate me to get stuff out there for you all. 
> 
> \- Red x


	6. An Enquiry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue wakes up. Tony has questions.

** 17th July 2016 **

Rogue wasn’t sure what caused her to stir into consciousness, but as she awoke, she found herself almost blinded by fluorescent strip lights. Her head ached with a dull pounding in her temples as a soft groan escaped her. She wasn’t sure what time it was, there were no windows to reveal the tell-tale shadow of the Sun, nor any stars to track. She wasn’t even sure where she was, which was worrying.

Rogue slowly risked peeking through one eye, then the other, and took in her surroundings. She was in a small single bed with white sheets and a white blanket. In fact, most of the room was white, almost entirely blank. It looked about twelve by fifteen feet in size, with grey carpet on the floor and a white door with a silver doorknob that she guessed wouldn’t unlock if she attempted to open it. Then across the wall opposite her, Rogue processed there was a large mirror, like the interrogation rooms they’d had back at the HYDRA bases she’d seen.

Considering she had no idea where she was, she assumed it was one-way.

Slowly, she sat up in the bed and went to rub her eyes when she realised her wrists were not bound. This comforted her somewhat – HYDRA had never been one for risking escape. They usually handcuffed her to her bed at night, more as a psychological reminder that she couldn’t leave than a physical one, and they always cuffed the prisoners. The fact that this room (which was most likely a sophisticated cell) had something as luxurious as _carpet_ told her this wasn’t her old captors.

But that brought an edge of fear to her because that meant she had no clue what she was up against. The last thing she remembered was the alleyway, seeing the Black Widow fall as she vanished, and then the other… The Spider in red and blue.

Then nothing.

Rogue looked down at herself and realised she was not in the same clothes – these were new. Soft grey pyjama trousers covered her legs, a little too loose on her frame to fit quite right, and a large white t-shirt. This unnerved her the most, as she had no recollection of these, nor who dressed her. As well as this, she felt aches that weren’t from the fight – glancing to her arm she realised there must have been some kind of IV line in her, and she’d probably had a catheter as well given her discomfort, but there was no sign of those machines or any doctors around now.

Rogue was still examining herself when the door opened, and she sat bolt upright, back against the wall. She was completely exhausted and ached all over, but knew she may have to shift if she was going to fight – her natural state was too weak.

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t Tony Stark casually walking in wearing a t-shirt and jeans.

She examined the man carefully as he closed the door behind him. He didn’t seem to have any of his infamous suit laying around. In fact, the only bit of technology she could see was a high-end watch on his wrist.

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” he greeted, tone awfully upbeat for the scenario. “You wanna actually stay awake this time? You’ve been in and out for a while.”

“Where am I?” she asked, her voice croaking from disuse.

She’d already memorised the room layout, so she had no need to look away from him.

“Right now? The compound. Don’t worry, it’s pretty much as safe as you’re gonna get.” Stark gestured to the walls around them and shrugged nonchalantly, before leaning back against the wall opposite her, just aside from the mirror.

Rogue didn’t move from the bed, but it was dawning on her that she must’ve been in her natural form the whole time she was asleep. She was not used to people knowing what she looked like anymore, and it made her tense up. It was like her skin was crawling, itching for her to change, but she knew it was her body’s immediate response to the threat. She would wait a moment longer first, as she did not know what appearance would best help her in this situation.

“So, let’s start with something easy. What’s your name?”

Rogue stared back at him in stony silence.

Tony didn’t seem to waver though, and he simply continued. “Because I’ve got access to a lot of information, and I can’t find you anywhere.”

Nothing.

There was a long pause, before Rogue glanced away for a millisecond, looking towards the exit. She wondered if she could make herself strong enough to break the door down. A sick feeling crept through her body as she realised that she was trapped. Her body felt off.

“Look, kid, I just have questions. An enhanced person shows up at a gala with hundreds of important people, there’s no trace of you, and the Black Widow of all people has seen your tricks someplace else. If you just answer me, this will get a million times easier.”

Rogue was intrigued by this. ‘ _He doesn’t know who I am or why I was at the gala,_ ’ she thought. ‘ _But the Black Widow recognised my abilities from the warehouse. Do they know that was me?_ ’

Stark sighed at her lack of response. “What do I need to do to get you to talk to me?”

She tensed. She could remember… Remember what HYDRA had taught her about interrogations. The thought made her stomach clench and her mouth go dry.

She could loathe those scientists and guards and agents as much as she wanted, and she could promise to herself that one day they would all pay the price for her suffering… But they had trained her – trained her to survive no matter what. She had been beaten, drowned, burned and tortured in a million different ways. If Cassie could see her now, she imagined she would be disappointed because Rogue had become soft.

Not in every way. She was still pragmatic and cold, and what little humanity she had maintained was probably warped and twisted beyond much recognition… But she had let her guard down. Her birthday had led to her emotions overwhelming her, and she could almost feel the harsh slap across her cheek that Dr Felix would have delivered for such weakness.

She supposed it was lucky she was training to be a spy and not an assassin. Sure, as a spy she would most likely have to kill people if they stood in her way eventually, but an assassin? No, she couldn’t imagine taking lives as the sole purpose of a mission, rather than an unfortunate side effect. Some of the older subjects, the others who had survived the initial injections, they would have become assassins she imagined. She couldn’t remember all their faces now, or at least, not how they used to look. She was rarely in the same room as them though – and she knew several of them had fallen ill, unable to continue the project. It shouldn’t have surprised her really; the participants were forcing their bodies to essentially dismantle and remake themselves into something unnatural.

Staring at Tony, she maintained as blank an expression as she could regardless of what she felt, before standing up and shifting smoothly into one of her more intimidating forms. He was a tall man with a shaved head and had several obvious tattoos peeking out from under an expensive looking suit. He wore metal rings on almost every finger, and she knew they were for fighting before they were for accessorising.

“You gonna make me talk?” she asked, her voice as deep and threatening as she had hoped.

“No. I’m gonna ask you questions and hope you answer them. Like what’s your name? Where are your parents? Who is Cassie?”

Rogue realised in that moment one very crucial thing: she could have had as much training as HYDRA could give – but there was no hiding her reaction to that. “How do you know that name?”

“You kept muttering it in your sleep. Is that your name? Or maybe your mother’s name?”

“Enough,” she demanded. There was a rising panic in her throat, her chest, probably a side effect of being a prisoner again, and the thought of Cassie telling her to run burned behind her eyelids. The explosions from the facility and her blood pounding were ringing in her ears as she shifted and ran as far from that place as she could-

“Easy, easy. We can avoid that for now then… What about your enhancements? How do you control it?”

“Stop,” she growled, her breathing significantly speeding up now, and the room seemed to start feeling less light and spacious. Instead, she could almost feel the particles around her getting closer and closer, and electricity seemed to crackle in the air nearby forcing her to shake her head furiously.

Rogue knew she shouldn’t take her eyes off of him, but couldn’t help herself as she stumbled backwards, legs catching on the edge of the small bed and she tumbled back onto it, her body shifting to the smallest form she knew. It was some instinct in her, some natural desire to be too small to hurt as she shrank into the body of a child, barely five years old. She was a beautiful Indian girl with wide, fearful eyes and a quivering lip, who snatched at the blankets around her desperately as she tried to control herself.

HYDRA had always taught her to maintain a cool exterior, never how to prevent the inside from imploding.

Tony looked more than lost as she began to freak out, as if unsure what had triggered this, let alone what he should be doing about it in case it was some kind of trick.

“FRIDAY?” He called out, voice a little uncertain.

“Sorry sir, I can’t read any vitals from the subject.”

Rogue’s head snapped up so fast she heard her bones click in her small neck. “I am not a subject!” she yelled. Her fingertips were tingling, and if she wasn’t so shaken, she would probably take it as a sign to try and get out of there rather than begin to hyperventilate. “I’m not! I’m not a- I am not a subject!”

It could have been the amount of oxygen she was taking in, or the panic and flashbacks she was fighting off, or even the growing desire to shed her skin and crawl out of it because even her very flesh seemed to cage her… Whatever it was, Rogue couldn’t believe her eyes as she saw what looked like a red man phase through the mirror on the wall, and float over to her slowly.

It spoke in a hushed voice to Tony, but she didn’t catch a word of it. Some spy she was meant to be.

Before she could react, the red man was hovering over her. “Sleep, child. You need to rest,” it told her, voice gentle in a way that had never been so obviously directed at her.

It didn’t match his fast move to place a hand over her forehead, but suddenly all the sleepless nights she’d had over the years seemed to hit her all at once. Thinking was like moving through treacle, and her eyes dropped so heavily that her breathing had no choice but to slow to painful hiccups. The red man lowered her back into the bed, laying the blanket over her, but she turned back to Tony Stark. Staying conscious was almost impossible, let alone forming words, but she had to tell him. Tell him this one thing so he knew – knew she would never tell him anything she didn’t want to reveal.

“You… You freed me, b- But you killed Cassie. She’s… You… You did this,” she muttered before the world turned to darkness.

-   -   -   -   -

Tony had been standing by the glass for a couple of hours at least, now, fidgeting with his monitor. He was so lost in his own thoughts that time simply wasn’t making an impression on him now. The one-way mirror allowed his eyes to rest on the enhanced girl’s sleeping figure, which seemed to be the only proof of her existing.

FRIDAY was running test after test, but unless you physically touched the girl, it was like she wasn’t real.

He could see her right now, of course. Tiny frame, barely five foot he guessed, and skinny not from exercise or a good diet; this was more like she had been malnourished for months. Her skin was pale and there were bags sunken under her eyes that no child her age should have. She may as well have been a phantom, and it wouldn't surprise him.

The room was the same size as the one the girl was in, with a shiny metal table, chairs, and a decorative plant he assumed Pepper had put in there to make the place look less empty and cold. But right now, his thoughts were wrapped up in something else.

He didn’t notice his actual phone vibrating on the table behind him, because he was running calculations in his mind. Like how she could change her shape for a start. Was she born with the abilities? Was she even human? Was it simply visual? Did her body actually grow and shrink? If so, how did the law of conservation of mass apply to her? And how long could she maintain one form?

He had far too many questions and no answers at all. It was like her very cells were disguising her from any tech he could make to provide answers, which meant he basically knew nothing.

Tony Stark did not like not knowing.

Even outside of her abilities, he had thousands of questions. Why did she not exist on any file? Why was she at the gala? Who was Cassie? How had he freed her? And after talking with Natasha before she left… He needed to know why she had tracked down Dr Felix, just to make sure he wasn’t killed. Did that mean she was working for HYDRA? But how could she have been if she was so young?

Tony groaned under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache coming on. He missed the days of being young and stupid and careless, sometimes. He didn’t regret the changes he’d made, but sometimes he missed being oblivious, living in a haze of parties and money and inventing instead of existing in a world where he had thrown a nuclear weapon through a hole in space.

Life was simpler before, and he missed that.

“Sir, Miss Potts is trying to contact you,” FRIDAY informed him, her voice ringing out from above. He was used to being spoken to by AIs, but the girl had freaked out. Maybe not because of the voice, but what FRIDAY had said about her… Being a subject.

He didn’t respond to the message though, simply waving it off dismissively. He just wanted to be left alone with his thoughts till he could work this out. Apparently, this would not be the case today.

“Tony.” It was the familiar voice of Vision, a voice that had previously belonged to JARVIS.

A voice that meant Tony would have to wait longer for answers.

Sighing, Stark turned and faced the Vision, who had apparently phased through the wall again. It was a slightly disturbing habit that Tony didn’t exactly know whether to ignore or discourage. From the look on the red man’s face, he knew that the two of them were about to have a discussion he didn’t particularly want to go through.

“Vision,” he replied curtly, turning away from the glass to face the android. “Let me guess, it’s gonna be a lecture?”

“I more wish to understand your reasoning. Surely after your… attempted containment of Wanda, you might think against holding an enhanced person against their will? Especially when we don’t know the extent of her powers-“

“Vision, I appreciate the thought, but I preferred you when you were in DC as our delegate,” Tony interrupted, giving the other a sarcastic smile for a moment, before rubbing his hand over his eyes. He was tired. Sleep wasn’t happening too much these days, not since his reality had returned to the supernatural. He’d barely convinced Pepper that marriage was a good idea without his superhero crime-fighting activities, let alone with a tiny shapeshifting girl to worry about.

“Tell me then, Tony. Why is this girl so important? I understand she is enhanced, but that does not seem like enough of a reason to take her prisoner – especially when it appears to be so distressing for her.”

The forty-something-year-old raised his gaze back to meet Vision’s imploring one. Though he knew that the android was every inch human aside from the materials he was made of, Tony often wondered how much of him was truly machine and truly alive.

“Would I have called you if this wasn’t anything important?” Tony asked in response, answering his question with a question.

This earned him silence, as if he was just waiting for Tony to continue.

Rolling his eyes, Tony pulled out a device that seemingly matched his modern mobile, until he tapped a few keys that pulled up a hologram with footage from the gala. “This was a few days ago. FRIDAY picked up unusual signals from this girl, signals that were most closely matched to that of a mission to retrieve a high ranking HYRDA officer called Dr Felix.” Tony tapped the device again, and a mission report appeared describing the incident. “Apparently, a man showed up out of nowhere, and knew about an operation the Avengers discovered out in Brazil. Neither Nat nor Rogers had cameras on them, so we couldn’t find whoever they were – most likely because they vanished into thin air almost immediately after telling them not to kill him.”

Vision scanned the information presented to him; his expression unreadable. Tony took that as enough of a cue to continue.

“So, years later, the signal presents again and it’s coming from the body of a dead girl. We don’t know if whoever that is in there,” Tony said, gesturing to the sleeping figure, “is the reason the actual girl died or not. And she showed up using her powers.”

“But you don’t know what she wanted?”

“No, and that’s what concerns me. There were some high-level targets at the gala, she accused me of killing someone, and according to every database we can access – she doesn’t exist.”

This seemed to make Vision pause, but not for a lack of argument. No, this was something else, Tony saw. The android looked as lost in thought as Tony had been minutes before.

“Vision? What’re you thinking there, pal?” He asked, an edge of concern and curiosity to his tone.

“I… Saw something when I helped her sleep earlier. A memory, I assume.”

This made Tony stop.

“What happened, Vision?”

“She remembers Brazil, or the base at least. There’s so much pain, anguish there...”

“Vis, I need you to tell me exactly what you saw.”

“A doctor, Dr Felix I believe. And a woman too. But there’s more, it’s a… A trace of this,” Vision murmured, gesturing to his forehead where the stone from Loki’s sceptre was currently residing. “The stone. Maybe- It’s as if her powers are linked to it, but not in the way the Maximoff twins were given their abilities. She was different, there was a purpose in this.”

Stark didn’t wait, getting the phone and searching for the file on their Brazil ambush. There were mission reports and debriefs, but they weren’t what he was looking for. After Fury released everything to the public, he figured there might be some HYDRA files about what the research  _was_  that they were doing down there. The reports had implied it was a centre looking into biological weaponry, but Tony wasn’t so sure.

Something felt off about all this.

A thought occurred to him then, and instead, he pulled up the seven files that had been locked ever since Rogers stopped Project Insight. There were so many layers required to access the files that it was almost impossible to gain information from the contents – fingerprints, retinal scans, key code and a vocal cue. They had been able to get the first two upon capturing Felix, but nothing passed his lips as far as the key and vocal cue went.

There had been talking of more extreme methods, but Tony had shut down any thoughts along those lines immediately. After his kidnapping, torture never sat well with him. Instead, Felix had just been given suicide watch and a monthly attempt to get him to reveal some information they didn’t already have. His existence had pretty much been forgotten and swept under the rug, and the HYDRA files ignored for more urgent, pressing matters.

He didn’t realise Vision had phased through the glass and was hovering by the girl’s bed like he was studying her. By the time he’d noticed, he already had a plan. Muttering some orders to FRIDAY, he scooped up his actual phone along with the other device and nodded with resolve.

 

“I think it's about time I paid the doctor a visit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all... the stress is real. Please pray for me in these last exams.
> 
> Your kudos, comments, and bookmarks are all so appreciated - always makes me smile to see the numbers rise!
> 
> \- Red x


	7. A Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony pays a visit. Wanda makes a call.

** 17th July 2016 **

It was early evening when Tony’s jet landed.

The private vehicle had been summoned promptly for the urgent trip and was now moving across an airfield only a couple of miles out from the Liberum max-security prison. Even Tony wasn’t allowed to know where he was exactly, just that it was somewhere in North-East Ohio. Well, technically anyway. This did very little to stop him from getting FRIDAY to find their location in case an emergency occurred, which he found was steadily more likely to happen in his profession.

Glancing out the window, he noted the seemingly peaceful greens and golds of what he guessed were wheat fields, and Tony could almost imagine that the landscape would have been beautiful once upon a time. At least, before the giant concrete structure lined with barbed wire had been constructed.

He begrudgingly accepted that this location was a smart choice since this place was second only to the Raft prison, which was specifically for enhanced persons. Anyone who tried to escape from here would be found in a matter of hours since there was no place to hide without digging a long, long way down. Tony understood why it would be necessary to keep the place open and uncovered, but nonetheless, it made him feel a little too exposed as he moved towards the country lane. Far too much open air, no trees, and the crushing memory of his trip through a wormhole began to attack him on all sides as he forced one foot in front of the other.

Tony was better now – better than he had been before, anyway. He refused therapy but would try offloading to people around him a little more. After the disaster with Bruce, he’d decided that Pepper was probably a better person to speak to. Open, empty spaces, and being underwater were still very bad for him. She was far more understanding about why he only seemed to want to shower with her rather than on his own once he’d made a few confessions.

Rubbing at his wrist below his watch was reassuring, as the comfort of his tech brought some small waves of relief into his bloodstream, but recent events made him worry that he needed something new. Sure, he’d blown up all his suits for Pepper, but that was for a fresh start. Tony knew he needed some small way to make sure he could be safe and protect those around him if anything came to surprise them.

As he got into the provided Land Rover that had arrived to collect him, he was already thinking and planning. Admittedly, it was mostly as a way to avoid thinking about the girl he had back at the compound, and how infuriating it was not to understand just yet. He had become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics overnight in the past, so what was it about this girl that held him back now? Mainly, it seemed to be a lack of information – he could understand anything when someone provided the information, but she had simply too many variables.

It wasn’t like she was rushing to give him any details, either.

The car ride was short, but it gave time for Tony to notice several things. Things such as how for a big and powerful car that should be able to travel miles without refilling, the petrol practically disappeared during their trip. This suggested to him that the engines had been replaced to only take in enough fuel to get a certain distance away – to the airfield at most, he guessed. He also noticed how the driver didn’t speak or make eye contact, and today was not the day he was going to try for chit-chat.

Tony decided to think about other things as the car began to pull up in front of the concrete walls. He looked in his briefcase once more, checking he had everything he wanted. Some photos, information on Felix, what they already had on Brazil, and the locked files that HYDRA probably wished someone like Stark would never find. They gave him some actual honest confidence under his usual bravado as the vehicle slowed to a stop.

Opening his door, he climbed out with a cool and collected expression and followed the guards that led him inside. Security was… Difficult. They would not allow most of his more complex technology inside, which left him feeling even more vulnerable than when he was in the fields earlier. After a small amount of arguing and sly persuasion, Tony had been granted access for himself and allowed the watch. That was a push too, especially given the stakes if a prisoner got hold of it, despite the fact this version could only record audio and summon the suit. This meant that everything else was left at the door. He hated feeling this defenceless.

Nonetheless, he made his way into the interrogation room with the defiant unaffected attitude he’d mastered over the years with repression and sarcasm.

“Hi there,” he greeted cheerfully, swinging his briefcase onto the metal table. A loud  _clang_  echoed around the grey, stained walls of the room. Lifting his gaze, Tony began to study Doctor Felix.

The man was probably in his late fifties, with balding grey hair and pale skin that screamed Vitamin D deficiency, and he had a deeply cold look in his eyes. In fact, he looked like he was one lab accident away from becoming a supervillain – which in Tony’s experience was entirely possible.

Drawing his attention back to the contents in his hands, Tony began to unlock the briefcase as he continued to speak. “So, here’s the deal, Doc: we both know how much you’d rather chomp on a pill of cyanide than give us access to these files, which is why you’ve not been of much use at all since we took you in.”

“And who is ‘we’, Mr Stark?” the doctor shot back, not missing a beat. “Because it was the good Captain and Miss Romanov who took me into custody. Forgive me if my information is outdated, but did your actions not exile them?”

Tony fought the urge to clench his jaw at this. Felix had information even here, which was not only irritating, but it was dangerous. It could make it a lot more difficult to get what he wanted now. Nonetheless, Stark decided to push on.

“Listen closely, Felix, because I’m only going to ask you this question once. When I do, you are going to answer, because you have nothing left to fight for but your pride. HYDRA is gone, and you have no friends left to help you here.”

Felix sat back in the metal chair, his hands resting calmly in his lap, fingers loosely laced together despite the electric cuffs around his wrists. He seemed genuinely curious if mostly amused by Tony’s statement. “And how do you plan to make me talk?”

Tony shrugged slightly, pulling out his own chair and sitting down. “I’ve been known to be pretty persuasive when I need to be.”

The room filled with silence and Tony let himself look around. There was only the stained concrete walls and floor, the two metal chairs, and a metal table bolted firmly into the ground. There was no one-way mirror in here, but instead a small camera and microphone in the corner of the room.

“Feel free to take your time mulling it over, but I kind of have a guest back home to keep an eye on, so if you could just give me the key and vocal cue, that’d be great,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You must think highly of yourself, Stark, if you imagine that after training for years within HYDRA, I will simply reveal top secret information because you asked me to.”

“Ah yes – the whole torture and interrogation route…” Tony sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose for a second. “See the thing is, Doc, we kind of worked out a while ago that that stuff doesn’t work on you guys, no matter how good you’d be as a punching bag. Plus, the whole suicide watch thing means that I can’t really threaten you with that either.”

Felix seemed smug, but there was a flicker of realisation in his eyes. Tony hoped he was smart enough to work out that he wouldn’t be here trying to get the codes unless they had something new.

His eyes widened and brows furrowed when Tony pulled out a photo of Baron Strucker.

“You probably remember this guy. Monocle, male pattern baldness, a tendency to conduct illegal human experimentation using alien technology… You know, average stuff,” Tony started, then pulled out a printed gruesome shot of Strucker dead in his cell, placing it next to the other photo. “See, the thing is, he kind of met a bad end. No fault of his own, aside from being the man who had some information regarding some freaky twins, among other things. I imagine it was the Maximoffs who did all that,” he added, gesturing vaguely to the cuts and damage apparent all across the corpse’s body.

“Are you implying anything here, Mr Stark, or is this simply an arduous attempt at frightening me?” the scientist asked, his face annoyingly unbothered at the display of violence in front of him.

“No, I’m building up to my question.”

It was with that answer that Tony pulled out a photo, and sat it calmly in front of Felix.

There was a distinctive flickering of emotion behind the scientist’s eyes that he apparently could not disguise for the life of – because the picture was of Subject 12. Her eyes were closed but nonetheless, her features entirely recognisable despite her being unconscious in the photograph.

Tony smirked to himself, knowing that he had the other now, despite being in the dark about the situation at hand.

“How did you get this?” the scientist asked, voice cold as he studied the photo as if trying to tell if it was a fake.

“I told you, I have a guest waiting for me. She’s very cranky, by the way. Apparently, you two know each other. I’m sure in the time since you ran into each other at that warehouse; she’s had time to mull over her actions. Maybe she still doesn’t want you dead,” he commented, picking up and reading the report file from the case, “but I’m sure there are plenty of things she would do. I don’t doubt she could sneak in here quite easily with her abilities… Though I don’t need to tell her your location, if you would feel generous enough to hand over the access codes to the Brazil files that is,” he finished sweetly, and crossed his arms happily, giving the scientist a victorious smirk.

The room went quiet again, but the atmosphere was incredibly different now.

He could see the doctor weighing his options in his head, eyes darting back to the photo of the girl over and over again. Tony waited patiently for what could only have been about 2 minutes before he shrugged and stood up. Silently, he packed away all the files and photos, aside from the girl of course, and closed up his briefcase.

Signalling to the camera that he wanted to leave, he waited patiently as the guard began to unlock the door. “I’m going to ask the question now, Felix. I hope you have your answer,” Stark called over his shoulder.

The door opened, and he heard the doctor sigh heavily.

“I assume you are recording this conversation?”

Tony turned his head to one side, nodding as he looked back at the man who had his eyes now fixed on the photo of the girl.

Whoever she was, Stark knew that the scientist did not want to interact with her any time soon.

“Key B57-H1DD3-N. Talpa.”

Tony smiled to himself, adjusting his watch. He’d got every word.

“Thanks for the help, Doc. And I didn’t even have to ask!”

With that, he nodded to the guard, and walked away, leaving the photo of the sleeping girl on the table as he left.

 

-   -   -   -   -

 

The apartment, to anyone else’s eye, would seem near-abandoned. Maybe a location for local squatters to camp out for the night, that is, if anyone ever found it. After all, in the middle of nowhere by the Russian border, no one would expect much of the shabby building. The wallpaper was faded and torn, the carpet matted down with dust and animal hairs, and most of the furniture damaged in some way. The sink was stained beyond a chance of truly being clean ever again, and cupboard doors hung off their hinges over a single mattress that lay on the floor.

To the untrained eye, the place would appear to have been just another neglected, tenantless home.

Hence, why it was so perfect.

In the corner of the room stood a tall, looming figure of a man, holding a phone to his ear as he listened to the woman’s words.

“ _Vision won’t reveal anything to Tony, you can trust me. I didn’t tell him we were in contact to be certain of it_ ,” Wanda promised the man, the patchy signal making her voice crackle over the line. “ _But he mentioned something the other day… About Stark. He said Tony called in a favour from Natasha, she helped- Well, he's holding a young girl hostage. She’s enhanced, but she knows about one of the HYDRA bases you destroyed. One in Brazil._ ”

The male clenched his jaw a little at the sound of this. Sure, Natasha going back was a risk he didn't expect the spy to take, but that wasn't what got to him.

_‘A kid? First Wanda, then the boy from Queens… Now, this. Will Tony never learn?’_

But regardless, the mention of the scepter concerned him. He knew all too well how much harm that thing had caused… And something bugged him about that, a memory he couldn’t quite place about taking the Brazil base. 

“ _I didn’t want to tell Vis just yet in case he passed on the information to Stark, but… Strucker told me about something they were doing in Brazil, because of the success in the Sokovian base with our capabilities. They’d been using injections and serums on subjects that had been saved from the war era, substances exposed to the Tesseract. Once they had the scepter, and they realised it seemed to have the same power, they started to up the dosage. They made people who could manipulate… Themselves, in different ways._ ”

“Like Erskine’s formula?” He asked, voice gruff from disuse.

“ _No, this was something new. They could manipulate the space they held with their cells. And some of the older participants were apparently mastering tricking the mind, making them vanish. Strucker told us they had all died when the base was taken, they’d been killed to avoid revealing secrets to SHIELD or anyone else. But if this girl is one of them, Stark may be in more danger than he realises._ ”

He fell silent, taking all this information in as his mind raced.

“Bucky,” he concluded, almost to himself. “In the file that Natasha gave me after SHIELD fell, it mentioned some sightings of the Winter Soldier in Brazil. Could he know anything?”

“ _Possibly_ ,” Wanda replied cautiously. She knew that the Winter Soldier was a sensitive topic for him, especially after recent years. “ _But if he was at the base for any period of time, he might have been training others or doing who knows what else. This might mean she’s dangerous – in more ways than one. Most of the subjects there would not be like Pietro and myself. They would not have volunteered. Vision says she’s young, so it’s likely she was bred and trained to be a child soldier._ ”

This sentence twisted his gut, and his grip on the phone tightened for a moment before he took a deep breath.

“I’ll see what can be done from my end. But keep a low profile, alright kid?”

“ _Of course. But what are you going to do, Steve_?”

Steve Rogers sighed quietly, before nodding to himself.

 

“I’m going to wake up a friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter was so delayed! With exams then going straight onto my holiday afterwards, I had no time (and more often than not, no wifi) to update this fic. 
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments so far, they always make me smile!
> 
> \- Red x


	8. A Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony reads the files. Rogue can't wake up.

** 18th July 2016 – 2:36am **

Tony Stark had seen and experienced many tragedies in his lifetime. Losing his parents at a young age, being kidnapped by terrorists, countless near-death experiences and losing almost all of his friends to name just a _few_ things… Well, that would take a toll on anyone. However, he figured he was handling it alright.

He thought he had seen the worst that the world had to offer.

Not for the first time, Stark was seriously mistaken.

He had got back at the compound just after midnight, having left FRIDAY to fully unlock the files on the flight home. More than anything, Tony wanted to get ahead of this thing by reading through the information before his ‘guest’ woke up. He wasn’t sure what to expect as he descended to his workshop, glad for the partial privacy the room provided as it gave him some space to think. It always had done, and he wondered briefly if his dad had found the same. But that was a thought for another time, and he brushed the clenching in his chest aside before setting up the holograms.

“FRIDAY, how are those files looking?”

“All decrypted, boss. Translations are at 98%, though I haven’t been able to screen through all the information yet; would you like to wait for a full report?”

“Just finish up the translations, I’ll read through myself.”

“Are you sure, boss?”

“Yeah. I’m fine, FRIDAY.”

As a panel of options appeared in front of him, Tony absentmindedly began cracking his knuckles as he sat back in his chair.

“Open sesame…” he murmured, swiping open the first folder and settling in to read.

It took Tony less than a minute to feel physically sick.

FRIDAY had dug up hundreds of reports and videos to search through, and he was greeted by the stuff of nightmares. Children and teenagers being tied down and gagged as they were injected with what looked like an assortment of blue and yellow chemicals that made their skin burn. Limbs burned from bodies like the Extremis patients, but with violent cobalt-coloured veins appearing all over their body until they burst through the skin. Some patients were as old as their thirties, but the worst of it was seeing the children. Babies. Countless files of ‘failed’ initial participants. He felt rising nausea at the sight of the photos, having to mute the video FRIDAY found him of the first few injection rounds. The screams were just too much for him.

Then he moved on to the survivors.

Twelve subjects, all numbered without names, were the youngest of all the cases. The oldest was a kid of fourteen years, at best. Tony wasn’t sure there really was a best. The youngest looked to be an almost new-born baby girl when she was first noted in the records. No name, just a number. 12. She was much younger than the others, but the notes mentioned that her genetics were believed to make her stronger than the other subjects, especially since the formula they had created seemed to no longer be fatal to anyone who was exposed to it.

There was footage of them training to fight, going against HYDRA agents three times their age. There was footage of them being forced under water until he was almost certain they would drown, of them being beaten over and over again to teach them how to survive the worst of interrogations without revealing anything. And in the background was Dr Felix, holding a clipboard and remaining unmoved by the horror, just recording notes on what occurred.

So _this_ was why the girl didn’t want Felix to die. It would be too easy. Tony shuddered, ready to read up on the formula or their training just to distract him from their pain when FRIDAY chimed in. He often forgot how odd it could be when artificial intelligence had a solemn tone.

“Sir, I found some more files that may be of interest to you…”

Tony sighed softly, pausing for a long moment as he composed himself a little more by pinching the bridge of his nose. It was a full minute before he nodded, and muttered: “Go ahead.”

True to her word, FRIDAY brought up several shorter videos that addressed his fears. The time stamp on the video showed that it was about 6 years into the project when it was taken. The subjects stood in an ordered line, bolt upright with their hands behind their back. Someone who looked like an elderly general paced along the line, and he would ask each of them a question in what sounded like Russian. Sometimes their answers would please him, so he would move on to the next. If it did not satisfy him, though, the child was slapped hard across the face, enough to leave an angry red mark. Once he reached the end of the line, he turned back and repeated the procedure, but asked the questions in German. Then Portuguese. Then Spanish. English. Punjabi.

The next video showed what looked like failed attempts at changing physical forms. Screams of agony as skin ripped because only the bones grew, and couldn’t fit the body, or blood flowed as the skin wasn’t thick enough. Tony watched as this killed Subject 3 and Subject 7. They didn’t even have names he could use to feel more humane.

Turning off the video, he decided to simply search through which of the subjects had died during testing. “God,” he croaked, shaking his head a little in disbelief as he read. “Six of them died because of the injections or training.”

He then pulled up the SHIELD report from their mission to Brazil, where afterwards clean-up had counted the bodies and listed them. There had been five more bodies found in cells, all with bullets in their heads. ’ _Christ_ ,’ Tony thought. ‘ _They must have been killed because we were taking the base. HYDRA would never risk a bunch of kids blowing all their secrets, no matter how important or trained they were. Once they saw the Avengers coming, they must have known they would lose.._.’

Feeling too physically and emotionally unwell to continue, Tony shut down the visuals in front of him. Crossing his arms, he leaned down and rested his head on his desk. More deaths on his shoulders, all since he’d revealed himself as Iron Man. And now a child he’d taken captive, who was apparently only sixteen yet looked younger than that, must have been on the run for years. HYDRA would kill her, and hell knows what SHIELD would have done before it fell. No parents, no home, and no safety.

She never had a chance at having a childhood.

He flinched, sitting bolt upright very suddenly when he felt two hands land gently on his shoulders before he realised that they were familiar to him.

“Do you actually plan on getting any sleep this week?” Pepper asked him, rubbing at the tension in his shoulders without him even telling her.

“I _have_ slept, just not the recommended amount – you’re only a little blurry anyway,” Tony replied quietly, still disturbed by what he’d found. “Shouldn’t you be asleep? It’s almost 3 am.”

“I figured I should make sure you took care of yourself for once. Come on, bed. Or I will force you to make more decisions about our wedding, and I will make you start colour coding napkins if I have to.”

Tony couldn’t help the gentle smirk that played on his lips. “Nuh uh, you promised. You can have whatever you want as long as you’ve narrowed the options down enough for me to choose from.”

Pepper’s laugh echoed around the quiet of the workshop, and he was suddenly very grateful for her presence. It lightened the weight he felt in his chest. That was the thing about Pepper, he’d found. She made it easier to breathe.

He closed his eyes as she pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“Come on, bed.”

Tony sighed but nodded. He followed after his fiancée to their bedroom, letting the warmth and softness of her presence soothe him enough to fall into an uneasy sleep, leaving the screaming horrors as far away as he could for now.

-   -   -   -   -

Rogue was no stranger to nightmares. She had experienced them on countless occasions, waking up sweating and hyperventilating as her body tried to ready her from an imagined attack. She was raised to have her body on constant alert – surprise training exercises, potential threats, midnight missions… Sleep never came easily, and when it came it never stayed. Either soldiers or sleep demons would make sure of that. However, she was never usually aware that she was dreaming, and it would all feel painfully real until her eyes opened and the world stopped burning.

That was why this was so odd.

Rogue remembered the red man putting his hand on her forehead, and remembered everything fading away into blackness. Logically, she knew therefore that she should still be in the cell Stark had been holding her in back at the Avengers’ compound.

That’s why she was so confused when she felt herself waking up in her old HYDRA cell.

She recognised it as the one in Brazil, as opposed to the other places she had been held over the years. England, Berlin, Siberia, and numerous other locations that she had been too young to recall later on.

Looking down at herself, she also realised her body was wrong. Sure, she was rarely in her natural form, but this was different. She looked like she did when she was seven – her baby fat limited, but still coating her limbs despite the muscles they were trying to build in her. Rogue even felt the same drained, tired feeling she would get from being punished. It was usually a punishment for asking questions, which the General or Felix would deem equal to talking back to them, so she would go two weeks without time outdoors, without seeing the Sun. Instead, she would be forced to take horrible oil tablets to give her the vitamins she needed.

Her head felt like it’d been stuffed with cotton balls as she slowly sat up in the bed, looking around in confusion to find what had woken her. Maybe it was her enhanced hearing catching the sound of guns slamming against the chests of guards lapping the base. Maybe it was the chill of the room from the air conditioning that constantly droned in the background. Maybe it was the passing of footsteps just a second out of synch that suggested an outsider.

No, it was something else.

Rogue turned to look at her cell wall, which was a nice way of putting it. She essentially lived in a cage, with only one side of the cell actually made of concrete. The rest were thick steel bars, leaving her entirely on display. Privacy was non-existent if you belonged to HYRDA.

She looked up at the wall, trying to work out what was different. This wall was usually where they would project videos for her to further her education. Mandated screenings on the history of chemical warfare, on poisons, on battle tactics, on the history of nations, of politicians – they all were seen from her cell. Most of them were in Russian or Portuguese, sometimes German. Rogue had to master a multitude of languages early on, otherwise understanding what her guardians wanted from her was impossible.

She reached forward with her small hand, which seemed impossibly familiar and foreign despite being her own, and searched for a crack or discolouring that would explain why something felt so different.

“Subject 12,” a cold voice called, and Rogue turned to see Cassie standing at the cell door. But this was not Cassie… She remembered the woman too well not to notice how her eyes were not blue, but grey and cold. There was no subtle sense of softness to her, no clue that she might be the smallest bit protective of the child. Not even the faintest trace of a smile.

The fake-Cassie opened the door and strode over to her, grabbing her harshly by the elbow and yanking the girl to her feet. Rogue did not complain – by HYDRA’s standards, this was being molly-coddled.

“Where are we going?” Rogue asked in English. Cassie had always used English with her, and it made the young girl wonder about her history. Her accent had always implied she was American, but the woman seemed to be fluent in Spanish and German too when she spoke to other subjects.

“Silence,” the fake-Cassie ordered, and Rogue felt a small amount of panic in her chest. She could recognise the route they were taking.

A moment later, she seemed to barely blink before finding she was sat tied to a chair. Recognising the stains on the walls from where the blood just wouldn’t come out, Rogue knew she was the Training Room. In front of her was a metal bathtub filled with iced water, and behind it, sat the very man she saw every time she had a nightmare.

General Volkov.

He grinned at her, lips curling into a cruel snarl that reminded her of a wolf looking at its prey. This was the man in charge of her training. Whilst Dr Felix managed her injections and shapeshifting, Volkov would train her in other ways. In how to be a child spy. Fighting, speaking 12 different languages, making and using weapons, interrogations, everything.

“где он? _(Where is he?)_ ” The General asked, the Russian accent thick in his throat and all too closely tied with too many painful memories.

In confusion, Rogue furrowed her brows as she looked at him. “Кого ты ищешь? _(Who are you looking for?)_ ” she replied, cautiously.

Before she had the chance to react, the girl was grabbed by the back of her head and forced under the ice water of the tub. She refused to scream – she had been taught better than to act so disgracefully, but she began to squirm as the pressure built up in her.

Just when it felt like her lungs would burst from her chest, Rogue was yanked back out again, spluttering pathetically as she tried to inhale properly. The invisible hand that twisted in her hair did not release her as the General turned to her once more. Volkov watched her with a calculating glare, before repeating louder: “где он? _(Where is he?)_ ”

Rogue fought to keep her voice steady as she replied, but it was difficult with all the water up her nose, so cold that she was also fighting the urge to shiver. “О ком ты говоришь? Я не знаю, чего ты хочешь. _(Who are you talking about? I don’t know what you want.)_ ”

The General did not reply, and instead, she was forced under the water once more.

A merciless cycle seemed to form, and Rogue came to the realisation that she must have been asleep, but could not wake no matter how hard she tried. Instead, she was trapped in what felt like a time loop, as she was held under the freezing water until she was certain she would drown, then asked the same question to which she had no answer.

The torture felt endless to her, and the small girl’s frame was shaking violently from the cold and escaping sobs as she pleaded for the General to tell her what he wanted… But he told her nothing.

“Генерал, пожалуйста! Скажите мне, о ком вы просите, и я помогу. Я не знаю, кого вы ищете! ( _General, please! Tell me who you ask for and I will help. I do not know who you are looking for!)”_ She pleaded desperately, chest aching as she heaved, forcing herself to gather as much oxygen as she could for the next inevitable round of testing.

But instead of going straight back under, the General held up his hand for her captor to stop. The elderly man, probably in his late fifties, slicked back his grey strands of hair, and donned his officer’s hat, regarding her more coldly than she had felt in the ice.

“We know,” he told her, now in English as he stood from his seat. “Dispose of the weak ones,” he called, before walking away into the edge of darkness she couldn’t see past. Before she could even look around to see where he was, Rogue felt herself being forced back into the water.

 

This time, she was not brought back up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this is mostly filler, but on the upside: I've read 2 books this week and to be honest I've not felt so alive in MONTHS. Truly powerful.
> 
> Thank you for the kudos and a special thanks to those who've commented - I love hearing your thoughts!!
> 
> \- Red x


	9. An Agreement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue awakens, Tony proposes a plan.

** 18th July 2016 – 9:48am **

Rogue’s eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright in the foreign bed. Her chest heaving, she found herself gasping to control her breath, her body coated in a thin sheen of cold sweat.

It was not the nightmare that had frightened her the most – it was how she’d been unable to awaken from it. After years of training, hiding, being on the run, acting as a stowaway in different homes and stealing to survive, Rogue had become a very light sleeper. She had to be ready for anything, so usually, the slightest sound would wake her, or her bad dreams could only chase her for so long.

Whatever that red man had done to make her pass out, it had left her stuck in an unconscious state. She knew very little about him, but he made her very concerned. He was enhanced beyond anything she had seen before outside of HYDRA, and she didn’t like not knowing the extent of his powers.

Lifting her head, she looked around to realise she was still in the room she’d woken up in after Iron Man had taken her. The same bed, clothes, and white walls surrounded her. It didn’t feel like much time had passed, but she couldn’t be sure just yet.

“Are you alright, miss?” the disembodied voice of a woman asked her, and made the girl flinch. “My sensors are picking up heavy breathing. As I cannot read your vitals, would you like me to summon Mr Stark?”

Though she knew she was on her own, it was still jarring to think she was being watched. She couldn’t even see any cameras or speakers in the room, so wasn’t entirely certain where it was coming from.

“No,” she coughed, shaking her head for good measure. “I’m fine. Where- who are you?”

“I am F.R.I.D.A.Y., a natural-language user interface created by Tony Stark, designed to work with his Iron Man armour and assist within the compound. I serve as Mr Stark's main user interface computer system during battles, and assist in running Stark Industries using A.I. capabilities.”

Rogue blinked startled at the information provided but nodded slowly. “So… I assume you could direct me to a bathroom?”

Those seemed to be some kind of magic keywords, because a glowing white line lit up along the wall of the room that led to the door, and she realised it would allow her out. ‘ _Stark hasn’t locked me in?_ ’ she thought, confusion etched across her face. ‘ _Does he even know how to keep a prisoner?_ ’

Rising slowly from the bed, she felt her body complaining at the lack of movement over the past few days and lack of proper food. She could sense where there must have been IV and catheters attached to her, which was deeply disturbing, as she had not experienced those in many years now. She would rather have wet the bed than have strangers touch her in her sleep. She must have ripped them out during one of the first times she woke up though, she figured, looking at the bruising around the veins in her arms.

Rogue remembered being incredibly disorientated when she had properly woken up and spoken to Tony, but the recollection was difficult. She wasn’t sure of the precise words exchanged, but one thing the girl did know was that she had limited time. The reason Rogue had avoided the eyes of SHIELD and the supposedly fallen HYDRA was so they couldn’t work out who she was. Now she had been here for however many days, she was sure if they didn’t know who she was yet, they would be close to finding out.

Sighing, she stretched out her arms, legs, and back, cherishing the feeling of proper circulation before she crept slowly towards the door. The white line of light remained on the wall for her to follow, and she steadied herself. She had been trained for this. Her whole existence was designed so that she could avoid being seen or found.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door, and shifted into invisibility.

With the door now open, she could hear hushed voices in what sounded like a heated discussion down the halls from her. Though the AI’s directions told her to follow round to the left, she decided to move forward instead, towards the sound of voices. If she could avoid detection, maybe she could follow one of them to an exit. Rogue wasn’t entirely sure how they tracked her the first time, but she figured if she could get far enough away fast enough, it would make it a lot harder for them.

Maybe San Francisco – that had always sounded populated enough. She could get a plane out to somewhere in Arizona, then hitchhike and stowaway till she reached California. As great as it would be to fly the whole way, she wasn’t sure just how long she could consistently hold one form for on a plane, even with breaks hiding in the bathroom.

It felt nice to have an escape plan as she crept silently down the hall. Since the AI couldn’t read her vitals, she would have to hope that she was quiet enough to not be noticed, and channelled all of her power into being completely untraceable.

When Rogue reached the end of the hallway, she found herself at the source of the voices. She was in some kind of spacious living room, with far too many windows for her liking. A man as controversial as Tony Stark should really rethink all the décor. As nice as it looked to be so spacious, there were so many vantage points… Then again, she imagined the perimeters were heavily guarded by his suits or whatever other armies of tech he had at his disposal.

“If Ross finds out about this-“

“Then he would throw the kid into a cell and wouldn’t lose a minute of sleep over it.”

“We can’t harbour a secret HYDRA asset, Tony.”

“Who says she’s even loyal to them? She hunted Felix down to make sure he got justice, does that sound like a crazed danger to society to you?”

Rogue was hardly listening as she had begun to move once again. She was vaguely aware of Tony arguing with a tall African-American man, whilst a woman with strawberry-blonde hair sat on the couch looking at the two of them.

“Rhodey, she’s only a kid-“

“I know, I’m just saying you need to think this through more. What are you gonna do? Keep her captive? I’m sure she would love that.”

“No, I’m going to-“

She had almost reached the door when a voice rung out amongst the bickering that stilled her movements entirely.

“Tony, it may interest you to know that our guest is awake, and that this conversation is no longer private.”

Rogue froze on the spot, eyes glued to the red man who had managed to silence the room. Tony, the woman, and the other man were looking around to see what it was that he was talking about, but the red man simply began to float straight towards her. Holding her breath, the girl made every effort she could not to give her position away. Had HYDRA not trained her out of wishful, faithful behaviours, she might have even prayed he wouldn’t find her.

But no – the universe continued to disown her.

“Vision?” Tony called, trying to follow the red man’s eye line.

‘ _So that’s what this man, this **thing** is called. Vision,_’ she thought silently, as it positioned himself behind her. She could feel him reaching forward to place a hand on her back, and knew there was no way out of this.

Sighing, she shifted back into visibility, a sullen glare on her face as she stepped forward before it could touch her.

Well, not _her_ face.

She had chosen the girl from the night of the gala again, as she wasn’t sure her natural form would hold much gravitas here – though she kept the white shirt and loose sweatpants they had given her to wear. No, she would stick with Evelyn’s face, knowing the added height and age in her appearance might help when it came to bargaining, which was apparently the new plan. If they trusted her to be mature and honest, maybe she could deal her way out. ‘ _San Francisco next time_ ,’ she thought to herself.

“Boo,” she greeted sarcastically, her voice a lower, silkier tone than her own.

Tony didn’t look too surprised, more apprehensive than anything else, but the woman next to him was suddenly regarding her with so much pity it made Rogue feel physically sick. Recalling the conversation that she had heard, she had to assume they knew who she was, or at least enough about her past to look at her like she was a puppy that’d been kicked.

‘ _Crap._ ’

She turned to look at the other man that they had been arguing with earlier, and cocked her head to one side, as if studying him. He didn’t look much older than Tony, and was wearing some metal framework around his legs. He had sounded more pragmatic, but he was out-gunned here if Tony and the woman were letting emotions cloud their judgement. She’d have to play to win.

“So, no matter whose plan you go with, you won’t let me leave, will you?” she asked, lacing her voice with sadness and fear as she tried to lean on the sympathy in the room. She could probably have the redhead fight for her within a few sentences if she did it right.

The room filled with a tense silence, and Vision floated away from her back, hovering above the ground now to her left so he was within her sights. It made her feel less unnerved when she could keep an eye on him. The thing made her skin burn under its gaze.

As no one seemed to be offering an answer, she decided to try again, doing her best to strike the balance between mature and wounded.

“What are you going to do to me? Don’t I get the right to know?” she pressed, resisting the urge to look at the door behind her that she could only presume led to an exit. Instead, she studied the room. Two grey sofas on an angle, a window for a wall opposite her, the door behind her somewhere. Stairs led up to higher levels, and what looked like a lab through another window. Seriously, what was with all the glass?

Turning to the expressions on their faces, the man who had been referred to as ‘Rhodey’ seemed stone faced, and wasn’t very readable aside from looking partially guilty. The redhead was still on the pity train, but Tony was the most interesting. He seemed to be studying her, like he was looking for something in her. Lies? Weakness maybe? She couldn’t be sure.

Tony cleared his throat awkwardly after the long pause, before shrugging slightly. “Well I would like to start by finding your parents.”

If the room had been silent before, now it was like they were in a vacuum. Even the distant whirring of machinery seemed to stop as Stark continued. “Or at least some family of yours. A legal guardian, maybe.”

Rogue narrowed her eyes at him. “Why would I need parents?”

“Because you’re legally a minor. You shouldn’t be on your own, you need to be in someone’s care,” Stark rationalised.

Rogue noticed a twitch in the corner of Rhodey’s lips at his words. She wondered how much _he_ agreed with that statement.

“How would you know if I’m a child or not?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Because yesterday, Dr Felix gave us access to files on The Chameleon Project – I’m guessing you already know the details enough for me to avoid recapping them. Your file was included.”

Rogue froze.

‘ _Oh._ ’

It might have been a number of things, like the lack of physical food for the last few days, or maybe the strange sleep Vision had caused in her…

But she felt sick.

This stranger, a man who had profited off of war for so many years, knew every detail about her. Maybe even more than she knew about herself.

Tactics had fallen aside now, so she dropped the sympathy ploy. Her voice was cold as she stated: “I don’t need parents.”

“You’re telling me you aren’t even slightly curious to know who they are?” Rhodey asked, and she could sense his judgement from where she stood.

“I got this far on my own. I was doing fine until you decided to kidnap me unprovoked, by the way. I was trained to survive – not to wonder whose DNA I came from.”

The woman went to take a step forward which made Rogue tense up, but Tony’s arm reached out to halt her. “Don’t, Pepper.”

Pepper. Now she had a name for everyone in the room, at least. Something rang a bell with her, though – she could be the Pepper Potts mentioned at the gala, the one who ran most of Stark Industries. How could a woman so emotional be pragmatic enough to run such a booming corporation?

Pepper was apparently feeling particularly passionate though, and ignored his warning. She didn’t try to move again, instead choosing to appeal to the girl’s emotional side. “We just want to get you home. To a real home, not some evil villain’s lair where you’re their test subj-“

“Pepper, dear, it’s alright,” Tony urged, trying to calm her but the warning in his tone told her it was also for Rogue’s benefit. She then noticed the engagement ring Pepper was wearing, and wondered for a moment if she could threaten the redhead to acquire her freedom. If Tony was the one the ring was from, anyway.

“Look kid, I know what you went through. I can’t say that I understand how you feel, I can only imagine, but this is the deal: we just want to give you a safe place to stay until we can reunite you with the right people. You shouldn’t have to be the one looking out for yourself all the time.”

“Safe?” she retorted, trying to ignore her doubts. Of course, she didn’t believe him; when in her life had there been room to trust anyone? But HYDRA was technically dead. There were factions still thriving in the darkest corners of the world, but right now, there was no looming group who would put all their resources into tracking her down and killing her. And SHIELD was a mess – supposedly it was shut down, so it was unlikely she would be top priority.

Despite the small part of her that did crave some safety, reliability…

No, she couldn’t trust these people.

Especially not when they had a floating red man; a man who could sense her presence constantly, even when she used the full extent of her powers to disguise herself. Speaking of Vision, she turned her attention to him now, knowing he was the real threat to her currently.

“You won’t let me leave, will you?” The question was not about whether she could go, more of whether the red man himself would allow it. He was the only one here who could stop her, after all.

In spite of the fact that he was most likely the strongest in the room, Vision instead posed a question to her in a soft voice. It was not for pity, it just seemed he was… Gentle. How odd.

“May I ask you something, miss? Why is it that after escaping HYDRA years ago, you did not settle somewhere? Acquire a common lifestyle, perhaps try to fit in with the rest of mankind?”

Rogue was silent, but that did not stall him.

“Fear has held you back long enough. Mr Stark, Miss Potts, Colonel Rhodes… They are all here to help you. Give you access to medical care, sufficient nutrition, guidance and protection. You do not need to be afraid here.”

‘ _And yet of everyone here I’m only concerned about you_ ,’ she thought to herself, but turned back to the group of adults who couldn’t seem to stop looking at her.

“I am not about to blindly accept being somebody’s prisoner.”

“You won’t be. No one wants to hurt you,” Tony promised, seeming hopeful of a victory here.

“I’m not a prisoner and yet you won’t let me leave?” she asked incredulously. “And if no one wanted me hurt, why attack me in the street? Why send an assassin and some freak show in a spider suit to take me?”

“Because we didn’t have the information we have now, and apparently _you_ went in first for a fight. Think about it – at the time, all we knew was that you had the face of a dead girl, and the readings from you matched an unknown enhanced person we knew almost nothing about. And you showed up at a party filled with a number of high-profile targets – what were we supposed to think? Just gloss over it, ignore you and hope you went away without killing anyone? We didn’t know if you’d been the one to kill Sage, that’s why we wanted to question you.”

Rogue felt something stick in her throat. “Who?”

“Sage Madeline? The- Well the girl you look like right now?” Tony asked, gesturing to her figure.

Rogue’s skin felt like it turned to ice with those words. She had the face of a dead girl. Evelyn was buried somewhere and she had been waltzing around with that face, completely oblivious…

Her shock seemed to register with Vision, because the floating man set his feet on the ground, acting a little more human. She flinched away from him, but now turned to glare at Pepper. She shifted back into her natural form, too uncomfortable to keep up the visage of the deceased woman. Since they had her files and had already seen her unconscious, it wasn’t as if she could make them forget what she looked like, anyway. The short, skinny frame with her dull eyes and mousy hair seemed fragile in comparison, but anything was better than the former shape.

Ignoring the looks of wonder from Rhodes and Pepper, she turned back to Vision. “Then why would you help me? And don’t expect me to believe some ‘goodness of our hearts’ crap,” she spat, her natural voice returned as she stifled a shudder and pushed away the thoughts of Ev- Sage, and what had happened.

“Because you are not the first person with abilities who has needed help. Not even the first enhanced who has been under HYDRA’s thumb for too long,” Vision told her, and she suddenly felt very boxed in.

As soothing as everyone was trying to be, they were treating her like some scared wild animal, which she supposed she was in some ways. But she wasn’t an idiot. They would want information about HYDRA, or to test how her powers worked at some point. This wasn’t just a good-natured act, she wouldn’t trust anyone in this room as far as she could throw them.

And yet she had to stay, because these people had a man who could fly, find her, and most likely kill her instantly if he wanted to. She wasn’t even certain how they had found her the first time, so what was to stop them from just tracking her down again if she escaped?

Rogue would have to wait.

She could let Tony attempt to find her some family, all of whom were most probably dead so her hopes weren’t high for that. Then by the time he found her a carer, she should have figured out how he found her, and could escape properly. It might take longer than she would have liked, but it was a plan. She was good with plans, and they comforted her.

So, as if defeated, she let out a long sigh, and glared at Tony once more.

“Fine. I’ll stay till you find somewhere for me to go. But if _anyone_ touches me again, especially whilst I’m asleep, I’ll break their necks,” she threatened, her tone low and dangerous. It should have been comical, as she didn’t resemble much more than a young teenager, and was wearing clothes that draped over her body like blankets.

Before any of them could respond, Rogue turned on her heel and stalked off down the hallway, and left the adults in a state of confliction.

 

Because they knew that her ‘warning’ would be entirely genuine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this was late lads, but I got my exam results back and I got all top grades!! I'm buzzing!! I am so not ready for Far From Home, it's crazy.
> 
> Kudos, comments and kindness are not only welcomed but encouraged!!
> 
> \- Red x


	10. A Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rogue compromises. Tony provides.

** 19th July 2016 **

Rogue had left the room she was held in a total of three times since her brief appearance yesterday.

The first time had been to use the bathroom, actually following FRIDAY’s guidance that time, before sneaking back without encountering anyone.

The second time was later in the afternoon, when she had wanted to shower. Sure, she could simply shift the atoms of dirt and grease from her skin if she wanted to, but she was so drained from her efforts using her powers earlier that it felt easier to simply bathe naturally. Though perhaps describing it as ‘naturally’ was a push, because the amount of tech in one shower was stupid as far as she was concerned. Rogue was certain that no one would actually need voice activated shampoo.

When she returned, her bed sheets had been changed, and there was a tray of food with a large jug of water waiting on the floor next to her bed for her. She was not oblivious to how dull the blade of the knife was, but as her stomach panged painfully at the smell, she risked eating the apple which seemed untouched. She left the bread and soup, mostly because she wouldn’t put it past her captors to use sedatives to start examining her.

The third time was in the middle of the night, where she found her way back to the living room, and started to explore a little. Mostly she was trying to find a kitchen. Luckily for her, with all Stark’s love for indoor balconies and windows, she managed to spot it easily enough. Cold marble sapped the warmth from her feet as she raided the walk-in fridge, gathering milk, bread, some salads and what looked like sliced ham, and running off back to her room.

She used the glass from her water earlier to drink the milk, and made a makeshift sandwich with what she had salvaged herself. It’d felt great to finally have some solid food in her system again, even if it made her nauseous since it’d been so long since she had eaten properly. However, she had gone hungry before, and could stomach the discomfort easily enough.

Now it was the next morning, and she had yet to see anyone.

That was, until someone knocked on the door.

Rogue was sat cross-legged on the floor with her palms on her knees, trying to centre herself like she had been taught. Being in a place of complete stillness and tranquillity had always helped her regain her strength after draining the use of her powers. Now however, she opened her eyes to stare at the door apprehensively, wondering who wanted her. It seemed like they were waiting for an invitation to be allowed inside.

“Who is it?” she asked, tone cold. If it was Vision, she wouldn’t be surprised if he was coming to drag her to a more permanent cell than this, which left her on edge at the idea. Rogue had been dragged around before, and if Stark was going to hold true to his promise, they’d need her for a longer while than she would like.

“The guy whose ham you stole last night,” a sarcastic voice called out in response, and she relaxed with a sigh, rolling her eyes. The door opened as Tony Stark entered, but waited in the doorway. He still wore an aged band t-shirt and some jeans, and appeared to have grease stains on his left elbow, but his physicality was nowhere near as casual – the two of them seemed equally wary of one another.

“What do you want, Stark?” she retorted, regarding him with a steely gaze as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

He seemed tempted to make another snarky remark, but held his tongue – Rogue briefly wondered if dry humour was his only response to things that made him uncomfortable.

The man sighed, and scratched the back of his neck as he explained: “FRIDAY has searched through all the decrypted files we have, from Brazil and on the Project, but we haven’t found any reference to who your parents might have been.”

This was not a surprise to her, so if he was looking for a reaction, he was probably disappointed by the blankness of her expression. Not deterred by her unaffected state, he pressed on.

“I’ve currently got a scan running through known HYDRA operatives for any facial features that match closely to try narrowing things down, but if we’re gonna make any real progress… We’ll need some DNA from you. Obviously that will involve some physical contact which you’ve made pretty clear isn’t going to happen, but if I call in a favour, I know a great doctor-“

“No doctors.”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen a mirror as _you_ recently, but I’ve seen corpses in better shape. No offense. You have no muscle mass and you’re so pale it’s beginning to freak me out. You should see a do-“

“No. Doctors.”

“Okay, we will still need DNA to get a match-“

“No.”

Stark sighed, already exasperated with her. He was determined not to do anything majorly invasive against her will, she had been through enough, but she was making this incredibly difficult. “Okay, little missy – do you have a better plan for finding your family?” he asked, tipping his head to one side and giving her a hard look. “The faster we find them, the faster you can leave, which you’ve made pretty clear is your goal. To do that, we need DNA. What’s it gonna be?”

By nature, Rogue was not a violent person, no matter how HYDRA had raised her. She was designed to hide, to disappear in plain sight, only to fight when she needed to kill. She was a wallflower with superpowers.

But good god, she would have happily punched Tony Stark in the face at that moment.

Gritting her teeth, she glared at him as a tense silence filled the room. “Fine,” she growled, getting up off the ground with a low grunt. “I’ll give you DNA – but I’ll do it myself, and the red guy comes nowhere near me.”

“Who, Vision? He’s out by the gate.”

“Good.”

He nodded, and seemed a little happier about the deal now. “And the doctors?”

“No doctors.”

“Kid, we can’t check your vitals any other way. Your enhancements mean you’re totally concealed from my tech, so as far as we know you could be dying, malnourished, or a whole host of things, and we can’t help you if we don’t know what’s wrong.”

If she was not so guarded, Rogue might have believed the care in his tone, little as there was. Sadly, ‘trust issues’ might as well have been her middle name.

“I don’t care. Let me leave, then you can see if I give a crap about mortality.”

“You know we can’t do that till we find-“

“My family, yeah I know. You’re a broken record, Stark,” she muttered, gesturing for him to lead the way. “Let’s get this over with, just… Just stay where I can see you.”

Stark seemed to accept this compromise, but she knew that the doctor conversation wasn’t done yet. She would have to make it abundantly clear that she would never agree to be tested or injected by anyone else again.

He turned and gestured for her to follow him, which she did eventually.

Crossing her arms in front of herself protectively, she followed him quietly out of the door.

Rogue memorised the route to his lab easily enough, noting the floor he called to FRIDAY when they stepped into the shiny metallic elevator. She had planted herself firmly with her back against the wall though, and forced herself to control her breathing. Small spaces were not fun when there was room for anything more than just herself. She would be more comfortable in a coffin than in a lift with another person, especially a man like Stark – one she didn’t trust and didn’t know well enough to guess his true agenda.

To her relief, the travel was fast, and she swiftly followed him out into a room filled with the most technology she’d been exposed to since she turned 12 and passed Testing Day. The memory of her evaluation made her shudder softly, and she only crossed her arms tighter around herself as she repressed the thought. There were many things she’d had to shove into the corners and shadows of her mind over the years to stay functional enough to survive.

Luckily, Stark provided a distraction as he pulled out a small silver tray of equipment. He placed it on a workbench and moved around so he was the other side of it to her, giving her some distance.

“Do you want to do this one at a time or get it all over with?” he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“What will you need?”

“Well we aren’t sure what will work, it seems like your body is constantly disguising itself from the scans, so probably everything to see what works.”

“So: hair, saliva, skin, nails, and blood?” she asked, looking over the tray that had a variety of containers, a small needle, vials, scissors, a knife… Glancing up at the man, Rogue wondered if he was prepared for her attacking him with any of these. Or herself for that matter. She might have- no, _would_ have tested the theory too, if it weren’t for the slight tremors she had in her hands.

Steadying herself, she let out a long, controlled breath.

“You sure you want to do this yourself?” he asked, evidently trying to keep his tone light and easy for her. It wasn’t appreciated.

“Yes,” she answered simply, before picking up the scissors with a sigh. Lifting her hair, Rogue snipped a small lock of hair from the base of her neck, before placing the many hairs into one of the jars on the tray. They were so long, her hair had grown out to her waist, the ends split and damaged dreadfully. She usually braided it to keep it out of the way, but she liked being able to grow it. At HYDRA, her hair had rarely surpassed 12 inches long before it’d been cut short again.

Next was saliva. She silently took a swab of her cheek, placing the bud in a vial, before continuing to spit into a tube. She glanced up at Stark for a moment, not liking the feeling of him watching her. “I’m not exactly going to fake my DNA. You don’t have to stare,” she muttered darkly.

“And you’d trust me so much you’d turn your back on me if I had a knife?” he asked, giving her a knowing look.

She stayed in stony silence, but glared at him as she picked up the scalpel. “It’s not about trust.”

Rogue averted her gaze from him for a moment, before turning her attention to her shoulder, rolling up the white sleeve of her T-shirt. She focused on her body for a moment, finding a spot with the least amount of nerves, and more importantly, the least nearby blood vessels, before placing the blade to her flesh. The incision was neat, and her hands didn’t shake.

If she’d been watching the man, she would have seen the unnerved look on his face when she didn’t even flinch as she removed a small section of her skin, barely a centimetre in diameter, and placed it in one of the vials.

The girl then took the final vial and held it under the wound, squeezing her surrounding flesh to encourage the flow of blood as she filled it slowly. Stark seemed to snap out of whatever he as thinking, gathering antiseptic and a bandage for her and placing it on the table.

Rogue raised an eyebrow at this, the vial now full. She placed it on the worktable, gaze almost challenging as she picked up the bandage. Deciding the man felt too dominant in this scenario, she focused her mind on the material in her hand, feeling the structure and bonds within it.

Once she had herself planted, she shifted them.

Stark watched, eyes wide but trying to maintain his composure as her body seemed to absorb the white cloth in her hand, and suddenly the skin of her shoulder was stitching itself back together, as if she had never been cut at all.

“Thanks for the atoms,” she said with a shrug, whilst his eyes seemed to roam over the area in wonder.

“If you can do that, why don’t you make yourself healthy?” was what left his mouth, and Rogue gave him a look of boredom.

“I’ll explain when you work it out, Stark.”

After all, why would she tell him? He wouldn’t kill her whilst he had no answers, so whilst she would frustrate him, at least she wouldn’t be put down when he was done holding her. She imagined that was what the samples were really for, not using her DNA to find relatives, so why seem weak in front of her captor when he would have all the answers soon anyway?

“Are you always this sullen? Because you have the moody teenager thing down to a tee,” he retorted, taking the tray of things and sliding them under what looked like a high-tech photocopier to her.

Again, she didn’t dignify him with a response. She wasn’t used to speaking if it wasn’t necessary, and part of being undetectable meant she had to be silent. She had grown used to the quiet.

The man didn’t seem to like it when she wouldn’t respond, it was like he _had_ to fill the tense silence as Rogue surveyed the room.

“I’m sorry, by the way. For scaring you. Though you might not remember… The first couple times you woke up, you had a couple of machines attached, just to keep you hydrated and so on. You had quite the temper.”

Rogue suddenly found the walls very interesting. Or, more honestly, she was avoiding his gaze. She didn’t have to explain herself to him – he was allegedly a genius, and if he had the files, he should understand. Right?

“Do you know how to perform a physical exam on yourself?” he asked suddenly, changing tactic. Rogue preferred this somewhat, rather than teasing, using sarcasm, or treating her like an incapable child.

“Yes,” she answered honestly, guessing where he was going with this.

“Would you? Since we have the whole ‘no doctor’ issue?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Now who’s the broken record?”

“If you’re so concerned about my health, I’ll just change my body to a healthy one and live forever. How about that?”

“We both know you become yourself when you’re asleep.”

“Then you actually have a few brain cells in there after all.”

“Don’t give me smart ass comments, kid.”

“Or what?” she challenged. “You’ll lock me up? You’ve already done that. So, your options include torture or death, and you’re too weak to even stomach the thought of that. I see your pity, Stark. You can cage me all you like, but I’m not one of your machines or your staff – you can’t order me around.”

That was probably the most he had heard her say in one go, but it was effective. The man groaned, and pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something under his breath about teenagers as he moved over to the thing that looked like a photocopier, and punched in some commands. The tech whirred into life, and she watched as it sunk into the floor – literally – on some kind of platform.

“So, no doctors, no touching, and no name. You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you?” he asked eventually, turning back to her and giving her a level stare.

“Why should I?” Rogue countered, returning her arms to their crossed, protective position.

This made him raise his hands in surrender, and she felt a little smug to see how much she could get under his skin.

“Fine! Fine. You want to antagonize me, go crazy. You can do it from your new room.”

This made her stomach drop. ‘ _A new cell, more like_.’

“What, you didn’t think we were going to just keep you in the observation room forever did you?” he asked.

Though his voice didn’t sound malicious, she couldn’t help but wonder where she would be kept now. She just hoped there weren’t bars involved; they made her flashbacks worse, and she needed to be at her best for when she could escape.

“Come on, hotshot. Let’s go.”

He nodded for her to follow him and started to walk away again. Part of her was tempted just to let him leave, and stay here. Explore a little; maybe hide away until Stark sent Vision to track her down.  The other half told her the whole thing was inevitable, so she sighed before treading defeated after him, tugging down the sleeve of her T-shirt.

This time, they didn’t use the elevator, and Rogue wondered briefly if Stark had picked up on her reaction to the lift last time as they made their way down a flight of stairs. The halls were less easy to memorise, and she was about ready to give up when she found herself entering what appeared to be a smaller kitchen than the one that she’d been in last night.

‘ _What?_ ’ she thought, looking over the black marble breakfast island, large fridge-freezer, stove… There was also what seemed like a communal area with a couple of black leather sofas and cosy looking blue armchairs on the other side of the long room, but it showed no signs of life or usage. It was like a hotel, or a brand-new apartment that had yet to be occupied. She risked a curious glance at Stark, but he was moving towards a door at the back-right end of the room, opening it for her and giving nothing away.

Rogue narrowed her eyes, unsure what she was supposed to make of this whole scenario, but entered the room, staying as far away from Stark as she could when she passed him.

What she was faced with took her entirely by surprise.

Whatever she was expecting, it was not an actual bedroom.

It was big, too – light and spacious with high ceilings, as if designed to avoid feeling claustrophobic. The walls were a pale blue, and the floor was covered in a thick, soft carpet of an equally pale beige colour. From the ceiling hung a pretty set of lights that seemed to resemble crystal vine leaves twisted into a wreath, casting small shards of rainbow at odd angles. On her right was a king-sized bed with soft white sheets, and an assortment of colourful pillows and scatter cushions artfully placed around the headboard. At the foot of the bed was what appeared to be a bright blue ottoman, and its purpose mostly appeared to be to match the aesthetic of the room as she couldn’t imagine what she would need one for.

Opposite her were two long and thin rectangular windows, framed with white curtains dotted with a design of small, pale pink flowers. The left window differed from the one on the right though, as it had a ledge fitted with a cushioned surface, most likely designed so someone could sit on it and look out over the grounds, with a couple more of the colourful scatter cushions in each corner of the bench.

Between the windows were plain white shelves at the top, which she imagined were designed for mementos or knick-knacks, of which she owned none. At the bottom the structure, it finished in a white desk with another two drawers, and a blue padded chair that seemed to be the same colour as the ottoman. On the right of the bed was a nightstand with a small blue lamp and several drawers. To the left of the bed was a large white wardrobe that she imagined would be empty. On the left wall was another door, which upon further investigation, she found led into what a small, similarly styled ensuite.

As she looked around the beautifully designed room, she could only think of one thing. ‘ _A room with so many places to put things – and yet I own nothing_.’

“I hope you like it. Pepper did most of the decorating, something about it being no place for a teenager the way it was. There’s stuff in the kitchen since you seem to like making your own food, it’s pretty much your own apartment.”

Rogue wandered away from him quietly, letting her fingertips brush over the sheets of the bed as she moved around towards the right window, looking out to see what looked like miles of gardens and forest. Anyone else would have been swept up by the generosity of Stark’s gift, but not her. She was just… Confused.

Did Stark think he could buy her trust with a nice room to stay in instead of some dank, dark prison? Was he playing the nice guy to lull her into a false sense of security? Off the top of her head, she could count at least 57 different approaches for interrogation or manipulation that he might be trying to use.

No, she didn’t trust this.

“We weren’t sure if you would have many, um- Many personal belongings kept with you. But if you have any stored, we can retrieve them for you. And Pepper will come by later to help you get some new clothes – you have toothbrushes and things like that already here, but she figured you would want more say in what you wore every day.”

‘ _So, he doesn’t know how I change my clothes regularly, then,_ ’ she noted, but was still perplexed by his statement. Of course, buying her a new wardrobe wouldn’t even put a scratch on Stark’s bank account, but trying to buy some part of her trust?

Surely, he should know that wouldn’t work. Or maybe he’d been around people who wanted things from him for so long, he couldn’t see otherwise.

She didn’t know for certain, but Rogue couldn’t see another angle he could realistically be playing.

Stark seemed to be waiting for some kind of response from her, again, so she finally turned back to face him.

“What made you think I liked blue?”

“You know, for someone so tiny you are massively irritating, little miss- See, I can’t even use a name for you, I don’t have anything to refer to you as. You gotta pick a name or I’m just gonna start calling you Titch.”

Rogue scoffed at this, a little amused at how irked she’d made him.

Regardless, her name was her own. It was the one part of her that no one got to know, or keep, or ruin. After a life with no privacy, living in a prison with bars that allowed anyone to stare at her, like some creature in a zoo, where she was stripped and injected and measured every day and was never given anything to own… No. She wanted to keep her name.

She decided no harm could come from a fake one instead.

“Your spy kid, Peter, or whoever he is. The one from the gala,” she said quietly, sitting herself on the corner of the bed and feeling the mattress sink beneath her weight. “He thinks I’m called Evelyn – Eve for short.”

“I’m guessing that’s the only bone you’ll throw me today?” Stark asked, studying her from the doorway.

“Aside from me providing multiple DNA samples?” she challenged, raising an eyebrow at him, ready to return to hostility any second.

But he seemed to back down.

“Eve works.”

Rogue watched as he turned to leave, ready to search the room for bugs the second he was gone, but he paused midway through the movement.

“I know you have food in here, but you probably won’t trust it so… We’re having Chinese takeout tonight. If you actually want to join us, that is.”

 

He closed the door behind him as he left, so in his wake, Rogue’s only companions were the confused thoughts that spun round and round her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot lie, summer is going to RUIN my updating schedule so I can't promise any kind of routine for the next couple of months - but I saw FFH twice and really had to post this. It gave me so many emotions. 
> 
> Kudos, comments, and kindness are appreciated!
> 
> \- Red x

**Author's Note:**

> This is a second attempt to write this fic - because the first time I had not planned out a plot line and it left me struggling. Hence, this is a sort of rewrite and an attempt to comfort me after watching Endgame, and will hopefully work better than my first try.
> 
> This is mostly set after Homecoming, but as the timeline is a mess I'm making it as close to canon as possible whilst making sense.


End file.
